


Teacher, Teacher

by yestomiraculous



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Peaceful Protest, Shit goes down, Teacher AU, not really angst just...super intense, okay who am i kidding there's gonna be angst, super slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 19:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10288133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yestomiraculous/pseuds/yestomiraculous
Summary: Marinette loves her job. She loves being an art teacher, loves getting to teach kids how to paint and sew, loves helping make costumes for the school musical, even loves blushing her way through conversations with the cute science teacher. But when everything she loves about her job is threatened, will she and her friends be able to keep their school together? Or will François Dupont Middle School be forever changed?





	1. Sharpen Pencils

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am in no way attempting to portray an accurate French school here. At all. This is straight up an American middle school. I did not want the stress of trying to figure out what school in France is like.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am only partially attempting to portray an accurate American middle school. While I have experienced being the student of a semi-private American middle school, I have not experienced running one, so my portrayal here is entirely based on the gossip I heard from my teachers.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm super excited for this story and have been waiting to write it for months and I hope you like it.

Marinette rushed through the halls, out of breath and out of time and glad for once that there were no students in sight. Not that any students at François Dupont Middle School were still under the impression that she was a punctual person or a dignified teacher after an entire month of experience with her tardiness, but she still preferred to avoid sprinting past people she was supposed to be in charge of. She tried to reserve that for her coworkers.

Marinette sprinted around the corner towards the teacher’s lounge and thanked every lucky thing in the universe that the halls were empty and that she was graced with a free first period this year. She skidded to a halt a couple doors down from her goal and put one hand on her knee while she clung to her basket with the other. She took one futile moment to try and catch her breath and a wisp of composure. Both eluded her, but she did get a good lungful of air before she forced herself to straighten up and face the music.

“Ah, there she is,” Alya said as Marinette opened the door to the teacher’s lounge. The group of teachers gathered around the large center table all looked up at her, then immediately shifted their gaze to Alya, waiting and expectant. She looked down at her watch. “That’s… thirty-three minutes.” A large groan went up from the group. “Who had thirty?”

“That would be me,” Nino said, flicking lazy fingers in the air. The group, with varying levels of reluctance, all burst into applause and he gave a little bow. Marinette sighed and closed the door behind her.

“You couldn’t have been a few minutes earlier, Marinette?” Rose asked mournfully. Juleka patted her shoulder in silent solidarity. Nathaniel just sighed.

“Earlier is too much to ask,” Myléne said, shaking her head so that her colorful curls bounced around her face. “But it would have been nice if you’d showed up a little later. I had thirty-five.”

“I bring you guys breakfast and this is the thanks I get,” Marinette muttered, dropping the basket of pastries on the table and stepping back as the group surged in to pick over them.

“We all bring breakfast, Mari,” Alya said, standing and slinging an arm around her shoulders as they both watched everyone begin to argue over who got what pastry. “But the rest of us bring it on time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marinette said, waving her hand irritably. She raised her voice to call over the squabbling of hungry teachers. “Hey, you guys know Nino gets first pick.” Everyone looked up at her, then they all turned to glare at Nino.

“Thank you, Marinette,” Nino said smugly. He made a show of looking over the basket and considering his options, even though they all knew what he would pick. There was still that moment of anticipation while his fingers flitted first to a croissant, then to a blueberry muffin, then to a carefully wrapped chocolate éclair, the chance that maybe this time, he’d choose something different. However, in the end, he naturally claimed the prize that everyone wanted: the large cinnamon roll nestled right on top, still a little warm and perfectly iced. He finally picked it up and the watching group let out a little sigh of disappointment, even though it had basically been preordained that he would take it. They all watched as he took a big bite of it and smugly sauntered off to allow everyone else to bicker and barter over what was left.

“Congratulations,” Marinette said drily as Nino drifted over to them, tearing into his cinnamon roll with an annoying amount of satisfaction.

“Thanks,” Nino said with a wink. “And thank you for being exactly thirty-three minutes late. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Marinette huffed, crossing her arms over her chest so energetically that her bag thumped against her hip. “One of these days, I’ll actually be on time. What will you guys do then?”

“First, we’ll check to see if hell has frozen over,” Nino said through a mouthful of cinnamon roll.

“Then, we’ll congratulate Adrien on finally winning first-pastry rights,” Alya said cheerfully.

“Adrien?” Marinette asked.

“You rang?” Marinette whirled around to see Adrien approaching them, a cheese Danish in his hands. He looked great in his sweater, same as he always did. And same as _she_ always did whenever he directly addressed her, she felt her cheeks begin to heat.

“Oh, um. We were just talking about what would happen if I ever showed up on time,” Marinette said, hoping her cheeks wouldn’t burn too brightly and knowing that they were probably already as red as a stop sign.

“I would finally win,” Adrien said, looking down at his cheese Danish forlornly.

“You mean…” Marinette blinked at him.

“I always bet that you’re not going to be late,” Adrien said with a shrug and a warm smile that should definitely be outlawed.

“Oh,” Marinette said, all words abruptly deserting her. Until she felt an elbow in her side and she fumbled back into speech, her hands waving in front of her. “You really shouldn’t do that, you may _never_ get the cinnamon roll, I mean I haven’t been on time _once_ this semester and you really deserve to be able to get first pick at least _once,_ I mean-”

“Speaking of never getting food,” Alya said, cutting in as smoothly as only Alya could. She held her hand out to Marinette, “I’ll take mine, pretty please.”

“Right, sorry,” Marinette said, immediately diving into her bag in a well-timed attempt to hide her burning face. She brought out Alya’s special gluten-free banana bread and placed it in her waiting palm.

“You’re my favorite, Marinette,” Alya said, holding the packet up to her nose to take a deep sniff. She sighed and leaned into Marinette. “My absolute favorite.”

“What about me?” Nino asked, making his best shocked face and pressing an affronted hand to his chest.

“You’re my husband, you don’t count,” Alya said flatly. She grabbed Marinette’s arm and tugged her along towards the large table, where the other teachers had long since settled with their hard-won pastries. They both took their customary seats in the cracking plastic chairs and Nino and Adrien took the ones next to them.

“I love pastry day,” Nathaniel said thoughtfully as he considered the twin scones he’d come away with.

“It’s like the pastries have been flown in from Paris,” Myléne sighed, savoring a bite of her fresh croissant.

“Well, my parents _are_ from Paris, so-” Marinette started.

“Almost like they’ve been made by true Parisian bakers,” Nino said loudly, licking frosting off his fingers and grinning at her.

“You’re welcome,” Marinette muttered, crossing her arms over her chest again as she slumped back in her seat.

“Thank you, Marinette,” Adrien said with an easy smile for her, his cheese Danish already half finished.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Marinette said quickly, abruptly sitting up and smiling back at him in a way that she seriously hoped was just bright and not manic. Adrien simply went back to his pastry and Alya was shaking her head at her in amusement, not exasperation, so it probably wasn’t too bad.

“So, how’s the school musical going, my art nerds?” Alya asked, popping a piece of banana bread in her mouth.

“Art nerds?” Juleka asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re one of two people in here not in the Arts department.”

“Exactly,” Alya said with a shrug and a grin. “My art nerds.” Juleka’s eyebrow remained raised, but she turned to Myléne to answer for them.

“We’ve narrowed down the options to _Annie_ and _Honk!_ ,” Myléne said, casting a nervous glance at the other arts teachers.

“I still say we should go with _Honk!_ ,” Nino said, waving the remains of his cinnamon roll. “The story of the ugly duckling is a classic.”

“So is Annie,” Rose said, picking apart her raspberry-lemon muffin with anxious fingers. Juleka laid a hand over her fingers to calm them before the muffin was completely crumbs. Rose cast her a grateful glance before she turned back to the group with her face set. “Annie is one of _the_ classic musicals. Everyone knows it.”

“Everyone knows it too well,” Marinette said with a sigh. “Also, I really hate costuming period shows. With all of my heart.”

“But you already have costumes from when we did _Thoroughly Modern Millie_ ,” Myléne said. “We have to think of our budget.”

“What budget?” Juleka muttered.

“All of my heart, Myléne,” Marinette said, shaking her head slowly. “All of my heart.”

“But the little orphans are always so cute, especially with their dance routines,” Rose said, her hands clasped under her chin and her eyes shining. “I _love_ those dance routines.”

“Little ducklings are cute too,” Juleka said, casually dragging the mangled remains of Rose’s muffin away from her.

“Oh no,” Rose said quietly, her hands rising to her cheeks as she stared off into the distance in horror over the orphans vs. ducklings conundrum.

“I like the score of _Honk!_ better,” Nino said decisively, stuffing the last bite of cinnamon roll in his mouth.

“I like the set design of _Annie_ better,” Juleka said, patting Rose’s shoulder comfortingly. Just then the door opened and Alix poked her head in, bright pink hair pulled back in a bun that was trying to be professional and failing since it just exposed all of her ear piercings.

“Hey dudes,” she said, making a beeline for the table, her hands rubbing together. “I’ve got my students working on a project. How’s it going? Anything good left?”

“ _Honk!_ or _Annie_?” Marinette demanded rather than answering. Alix stopped just short of the table, looking around at everyone gathered.

“Musical argument?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at first Alya, then Adrien.

“Yup,” Alya said, staring down at the piece of banana bread in her hand accusingly, as if _it_ had made the teacher’s lounge into a battle field.

“Right,” Alix said, nodding firmly. She lunged forward, grabbed a pastry out of the basket at random, then threw up a peace sign as she walked right out of the room.

“Thanks for the assistance,” Alya muttered as the door slammed shut behind her.

“You can make an awesome set for _Honk!_ , you can’t change the score of _Annie_ ,” Nino said. Juleka just shrugged.

“What do _you_ think, Nathaniel?” Marinette asked, looking over at him for support. He froze, looking up from the napkin he’d been doodling on and around at all of the faces waiting on his answer.

“I- I, um…I think I’m glad I’m not involved in the musical?” Nathaniel said, shrinking back in his seat. Marinette sighed and Nino laughed and Juleka used her free hand (the other still comforting a conflicted Rose) to pat Nathaniel’s head.

“I get that,” Myléne said with a nervous giggle.

“You know, you probably shouldn’t have brought this up,” Adrien said with a chuckle, leaning around Nino to shake his head at Alya. “I think you’ve _ruffled some feathers_.” Marinette couldn’t stifle her snort and quickly turned red again when Adrien beamed at her.

“I didn’t think it would create this much discourse,” Alya said ruefully, taking a vicious bite of her banana bread.

“You should know better than that by now,” Marinette said as sternly as she could manage, leaning forward and stealing a piece of the bread.

“Yeah, babe,” Nino said, leaning over and bumping her shoulder with his own. “You know not to ask about the musical before September.”

“And then not again until after it’s done at the end of November,” Adrien added, brushing the crumbs of his cheese Danish from his fingers. He winked at Marinette and her face heated up even more.

“S-see, even Adrien knows,” Marinette said, turning her attention to Alya and trying for that sternness again, even though it was pretty much hopeless. Adrien’s winks were dangerous things.

“I’m sorry I forgot the rules of being friends with a bunch of art nerds,” Alya said with a long-suffering sigh. There was a laugh all around and the tension was brushed away with the last crumbs.

“But you know, we really do need to come to a decision soon so that we can get it cleared with William,” Myléne said, her hands clasped tightly in front of her and her eyebrows furrowed.

“But not right now,” Adrien said lightly. “Teacher breakfast is a sacred time, a time free from argument-”

“I heard there was some argument going down in here,” Kim said loudly as he burst through the door with his typical swagger. He strode in and peered in the basket, taking three muffins and stuffing one in his mouth whole. His voice was muffled by the muffin when he said, “Need a tiebreaker? I’m your man.”

“We’re not arguing, Kim,” Marinette said, frowning at him as he swallowed the poor, unappreciated muffin. “Don’t you have class right now?”

“I have them running laps,” Kim said, waving a hand at her dismissively before shoving the second muffin in his mouth.

“Right,” Nino said slowly, watching in fascination as the second muffin disappeared down Kim’s throat as quickly as the first had.

“We don’t really need your opinion on musicals, Kim,” Myléne said. When he looked at her, she flinched a little and quickly added, “But thanks for offering.”

“Aw, you guys were arguing about _musicals_?” Kim asked, his face screwing up in a contempt that made Marinette want to punch something. “Lame.” Something like his face.

“Wow, thanks Kim,” Juleka said flatly.

“You’re welcome,” Kim said with a smirk. He considered the last muffin in his hand and for a brief moment, Marinette hoped that he’d actually take the time to appreciate this one, but he just stuffed it in his mouth, same as the others. “Well, I’ll leave you nerds to your _musicals_.” He turned and walked out of the room without another word, a trail of cornbread crumbs in his wake.

“He called you guys nerds,” Alya said indignantly as soon as the door shut behind him.

“ _You_ called us nerds,” Nathaniel said, looking up from his doodles again to raise an eyebrow at her.

“I did it affectionately,” Alya said, pointing at him with her last piece of banana bread.

“It’s like he never made it out of high school,” Marinette sighed.

“Let’s have a moment of silence for the terrible dudes in this world,” Nino said solemnly, bowing his head over his folded hands.

“Nino, what-” Adrien was interrupted by Nino’s finger blindly jabbing against his lips.

“Moment of silence, Adrien,” Nino said, bringing his hands back together. They all exchanged similarly bewildered looks. Adrien made eye contact with Marinette and shrugged, grinning at her. She smiled back, rolling her eyes.

“If you two could stop eye-flirting at this sad and serious moment, that would be great,” Nino said, still sounding very solemn, but Marinette could see the smile he was trying to suppress. She was also going to die, but that was beside the point.

“Nino, you’re not even looking at us,” Adrien protested, apparently not bothered in the slightest, only to get a finger jabbed at his lips again. He sighed and submitted to Nino’s ridiculous request and they all sat in vaguely amused silence for a moment. Nathaniel just kept drawing on his napkin. Rose and Juleka shared the remains of Rose’s muffin. Myléne took out her phone and started fiddling with it. Alya just shook her head at her husband fondly.

“Alright,” Nino said, finally raising his head. “Time to go to class.”

“What?” Marinette blurted.

“Time to go to class,” Nino said, grinning at her and tapping his watch, which indeed said that they had only a couple minutes until the passing period started and the halls became chaos.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Adrien asked suspiciously.

“You guys are the ones who listened to me,” Nino said with a shrug.

“You’re ridiculous, babe,” Alya said, shaking her head again.

“But you love me,” Nino said, leaning into her and wiggling his eyebrows.

“I guess,” Alya said. She rolled her eyes, but she still leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Gross, you guys,” Adrien said, wrinkling his nose at them as he stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Yeah, shouldn’t you be _trying_ to act professional?” Marinette asked, crossing her arms and clucking disapprovingly.

“Rose and Juleka are straight up cuddling,” Alya protested, pointing an accusing finger at them. They all looked around and sure enough, Rose and Juleka were snuggled up, talking quietly to one another.

“Mrs. and Mrs. Couffaine, how scandalous,” Nino said, also pointing at them. Rose looked up at them and blushed, immediately disentangling herself. Juleka just shrugged and watched Rose get up and bustle around with a little pout on her face.

“Wow, breaking them up, how rude,” Marinette said, clucking at them once again.

“Yeah, have you no heart?” Adrien asked, flourishing his arms at Juleka and Rose, who both did their best to look pitiful, even though Rose was still blushing furiously. Myléne giggled at the scene and Nathaniel shook his head at all of them, a little smile tugging at his lips.

“I hate you guys,” Alya said flatly, popping the last bit of banana bread into her mouth and standing, dragging Nino to his feet after her.

“Agreed,” Nino said haughtily, adjusting an imaginary tie and pushing up his actual glasses.

“Hate us later,” Adrien suggested, a sly grin curving across his face. “We have to get to class.” Nino huffed and Adrien laughed out loud. As always, the sound curled in Marinette’s chest and made it warm. He was beautiful when he laughed, his eyes closed, his head thrown back, his shoulders shaking. Of course, he was always beautiful, but when he laughed he-

“You’re drooling,” Alya whispered. Marinette jumped, her hand flying to her mouth. She glared at Alya when it came away dry. Alya laughed, waggling her eyebrows at her as she led the way out of the room. “You coming?” she called over her shoulder. Marinette sighed, shouldered her bag, and followed her out the door.

Outside, the halls were already beginning to buzz with the voices of students let out early and making their way to their second period classes. It was a sound that Marinette knew well and it was a sound that she loved, more than she loved Adrien’s laugh or the ring of the bell as she walked into her parents’ bakery in the morning. To Marinette, it sounded like happiness in a way, the irrepressible hum of large groups of young students, conversation and laughter, homework and gossip, classes and clubs. To Marinette, there could be nothing better.

“Let’s go, before the kids start to swarm,” Alya said, grabbing Marinette’s arm and dragging her along.

“Later dudes,” Nino called after them. They both looked over their shoulders to see Adrien and Nino waving.

“See you after school,” Marinette called back, sending a wave of her own as Alya continued to drag her away. They probably wouldn’t all see each other until the end of the day. Adrien and Nino had a different lunch time than Marinette and Alya and the STEM classrooms and Nino’s music room were both in different parts of the building. However, they normally came together after school ended before heading home, so they’d probably see each other-

“Look at you, you actually remembered the teacher meeting this time,” Alya said, sounding much too surprised to be complimentary. Especially since-

“Teacher meeting?” Marinette asked blankly, falling into step beside Alya as she released her arm.

“You said you were gonna see the guys after school,” Alya said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Because we have the teacher meeting today? Same way we do every week?”

“Right!” Marinette said, memory hitting her like a freight train. “I mean, right. Of course. I totally remembered it. It’s Wednesday, Alya, we always have a meeting on Wednesday, how would I forget that?.

“You forgot,” Alya said, her eyebrow still raised.

“I forgot,” Marinette agreed, deflating. A door opened as they passed it and a group of sixth graders spilled out into the hallway, dodging them as they hurried off towards their next classes, too new to middle school and being in charge of their own schedules to dawdle in the halls. Marinette perked up a little as she watched them scurry off in their groups, sound reverberating off the peeling walls. “But I remembered.”

“Because I reminded you,” Alya said, her lips twitching into a smile. She put an arm around Marinette’s shoulders when she deflated again. “Girl, what would you do without me?”

“Forget to breathe, probably,” Marinette said forlornly.

“Eh, you can get your head on straight sometimes,” Alya said, squeezing her shoulders. Music began playing over the loud speakers at that moment, a poppy tune announcing the end of the period. Alya squeezed her shoulders once more and then let go, quickening her steps as they rounded the corner. “Come on, the flood’s coming.”

Seconds later, as the music came to an end, doors up and down the hall began opening, students pouring out of open doorways, their voices filling whatever space their bodies didn’t. A middle school during passing period was a special kind of chaos. It was slightly terrifying to the unexperienced, but Marinette loved this too. The waves parted around her and Alya, so it wasn’t too hard for them to get through the sea of children. Theirs was a relatively small school, being private and a little eccentric, but it didn’t feel like it amongst so much life, so many happy voices.

“I’ll see you at lunch, girl,” Alya said as they reached her classroom, expertly jumping out of the flow of students and waving to Marinette as she was swept away.

“Have fun with Anne Frank,” Marinette called over her shoulder. She thought she heard Alya’s laugh, but she couldn’t be sure with so many voices around her.

A few minutes later, Marinette paused in the doorway of her own classroom and took a moment to let the calm of her space settle under her skin. To most people, it probably didn’t seem like a very calming place, what with the chaos of color taking over most of it. There were shelves full of half-finished projects, bins full of fabric and supplies, student art mounted on the walls, paint splattering the desks, and a giant paper mache bird hanging in one corner. There were clocks hanging at both ends of the classroom in a failed attempt to help her keep time and her desk was sitting at the front, waiting for her to take her place. It was a little chaotic, but it was well-organized and she knew where everything was. It was hers.

“Good morning, Miss DC,” Lucas said, waving at her from his customary place at one of the tables in the front. He was a small, blond boy with big blue eyes and a serious face. He was also one of the few that always showed up early to her classes.

“Morning, Lucas,” Marinette said, walking into the classroom and setting her bag down on her desk. “How are you today?” Lucas took a moment to truly consider the question.

“I’m great,” Lucas decided, nodding his head in confirmation of his diagnosis. He tilted his head to the side as he considered Marinette. “How are _you_?”

“I’m pretty great too,” Marinette said, smiling to herself as Lucas nodded like this was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard.

“Hey, Miss DC.” Marinette turned to see Trixie walk into the room, her backpack slung haphazardly over her shoulder. She, unlike Lucas, was pretty tall for her age, with long ginger hair that swung as she collapsed into the seat next to him.

“How do I always get here before you?” Lucas asked, tilting his head at her as she put her bag down and pushed her bangs back out of her eyes. “We have the same class first period.”

“It’s a secret, kid,” Trixie said, waggling her fingers at him in an apparent attempt at mystery.

“We’re the same age, Trixie,” Lucas said flatly. Marinette held in her snort, but just barely.

“What are we working on today, Miss DC?” Trixie asked, firmly turning away from Lucas. “And please tell me it’s not laps, because Mr. Lê Chiên almost killed us this morning.” She sighed, slumping down further in her chair.

“It sucked,” Lucas agreed.

“Guess I’ll have to change my plan for today then,” Marinette said, heaving an exaggerated sigh, picking up a random piece of paper and dramatically marking off an imaginary agenda item. Trixie laughed and Lucas smiled.

“Come on, Miss DC, what’re we doing?” Trixie asked, drumming her fingers against the table quickly before she leaned forward to rest her chin in her hands.

“We’re still working with watercolors,” Marinette said, taking the last folder out of her bag and stowing the folder in a drawer, the bag under the desk. Trixie pumped a fist, a wide grin spreading across her face. Lucas sighed, slumping back in his chair. “You don’t like watercolors, Lucas?”

“They run everywhere,” Lucas said, wrinkling his nose. “You can’t get things _right_.”

“Art isn’t about getting things right, it’s about expressing yourself,” Trixie said emphatically. “Right Miss DC?”

“It depends on what kind of art you’re doing,” Marinette said with a shrug. Then she winked at Lucas. “And what you want it to be about.”

“So it _can_ be about getting it right,” Lucas said, smirking at Trixie.

“ _And_ it’s about expressing yourself,” she said, frowning at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Morning, Miss DC,” Deandre said as he and his twin sister Deanna walked into the classroom. Their arrival effectively ended the debate, which Marinette was glad of. Trixie and Lucas were sweet kids, but they could both be opinionated to the point of difficulty.

“Hey guys,” Marinette said, giving them a little wave before she turned to write the day’s agenda on the whiteboard. She heard them greet Lucas and Trixie, probably sitting down at the table next to theirs as they had since they all took Marinette’s art class _last_ year. She allowed herself a small smile before she focused on writing down the instructions for the assignment. Over the next few minutes, the rest of the students in her seventh-grade art class trickled in, most of them saying hello to her before taking their self-assigned seats, bringing the soft buzz of conversation inside with them.

Marinette finished writing up the assignment just as the bell rang, the same song as before filtering through the slightly crappy speakers. She put down her marker and turned to face the class, conversation fading out as she looked at them.

“Alright, class. Today, we’re going to continue working with watercolors…”

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

As always, the bell took Marinette by surprise. She winced as the last bell of the day played, the loud, catchy tune cutting through the drumming of twenty sewing machines all going at once. She looked up at the clock on the back of the wall. Unfortunately, the large clock (she got a bigger one every year and it _still_ failed to keep her aware of the time) agreed with the bell. She was running late. Again.

“Sorry guys. Lost track of time,” Marinette called to the class. As always, most of her kids just smiled at her and started packing up their projects. They were more than used to her by now. Even the students that hadn’t taken a class with her before (though many of them had) knew after an entire month of school that Miss Dupain-Cheng rarely let her classes out on time.

“Great work today everyone,” Marinette said, drifting through the tables and watching her students pack up their sewing projects and materials, making sure that everything was put away properly. She winked at Lucas as she picked up a scrap of fabric he’d dropped and he nodded his solemn thanks. She straightened a few chairs. She noticed Penelope, a small, dark haired girl, speeding through her clean up.

“Slow down there, Penelope,” Marinette said, touching her shoulder as gently as she could. Penelope still jumped, looking up at her with wide, dark eyes. “If you don’t put your machine away properly, we might have to spend more time convincing it to work tomorrow.”

“Sorry, Miss DC,” Penelope murmured, a blush immediately darkening her cheeks as she slowed her rushed de-threading.

“It’s alright,” Marinette said, patting her shoulder. She took the unfinished dress she’d been working on and folded it carefully. Penelope tentatively smiled at her and took the folded dress when she offered it. “Just remember, the name of the game is…”

“Patience,” Penelope said with a firm nod of her head that made her ponytail dance. She smiled again and this time it wasn’t hesitant at all. Marinette watched her as she put down her dress, carefully picked up the little sewing machine and foot pedal, and went to put them away. Marinette continued to keep an eye on her as she moved away from the table (it may have been the smallest sewing machine, but it was still heavy and that girl was _tiny_ , even for a sixth grader), but she managed alright, putting the machine on the shelf with the rest without any trouble.

“Bye, Miss DC,” Lucas called. Marinette looked over at the door as he waved at her on his way out.

“Bye everyone,” Marinette said, moving over to the door. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.” One by one her students left her classroom and she waved to each one as they chatted amongst themselves about homework and after school plans and the troubles of middle school students. Penelope was the last one through the door, rushing past her with a flash of a smile. However, she wasn’t the last one in the classroom. There was one student who almost always stayed behind.

“We need new sewing machines, Miss DC,” Tikki said from her place perched on the table across from Marinette’s desk, where she always was after class. She was a dark-skinned girl with curly hair dyed red, almost as small as Penelope even though she was two years older.

And, though Marinette would never tell anyone this, she was her favorite student.

“I know,” Marinette sighed, sitting down at her desk and retrieving her bag from underneath it so that she could start packing up her things. “But there isn’t any room in the budget for twenty new sewing machines.”

“Then just get ten new sewing machines.” Tikki shrugged as if this solution was clear as day. Marinette just shook her head. “Five?”

“I asked for only one new machine last time and was still told no. It’s just not happening any time soon,” Marinette said, gathering the things that had somehow scattered across her desk over the course of the day into a neat-ish pile. She and Tikki sighed in unison.

“For a private school that ‘values the arts’ it sure doesn’t seem to have enough money to ‘value’ us sewing kids,” Tikki grumbled, kicking one foot through the air.

“Tikki.” Marinette paused her packing to frown at her, even if she felt almost exactly the same way. “They have to accommodate almost ten different subjects and almost thirty different teachers, all wanting things for all of their classes. Our sewing machines may be…”

“Terrible? Horrible? Borderline nonfunctional?”

“Challenged,” Marinette said firmly. “But we _do_ have machines as well as three different classes dedicated to sewing. That’s more than most middle schools.” Marinette eyed Tikki until she sighed, her posture slumping.

“You’re right,” she said.

“I know,” Marinette said brightly, returning to her packing. “How did that skirt come along today?

“I still haven’t gotten the pleats right,” Tikki sighed, her feet swinging as she watched Marinette shove the entire pile of things into her bag. “I don’t know what I was thinking choosing such an annoying pattern.”

“You were thinking that it was going to look cool on a stage,” Marinette said, flashing a smile at her as she looked around her desk, trying to remember if there was anything else she needed to take home. There was a stack of things that needed to be graded in the bottom drawer but…that could wait. Probably. “It’ll be fine, Tikki.”

“Nope.” Tikki swung her legs up onto the table, collapsed back on it, and threw her arms across her face. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled. “All of those pleats are going to kill me.”

“Then I’ll make sure to get you some nice flowers for your funeral.” Marinette stared at the bottom drawer. Then she sighed and opened it, stuffing the folder full of ungraded quizzes in her bag with the rest of her stuff.

“Thanks, Miss DC. Knew I could count on you,” Tikki said drily, dropping her arms from her face so that she could glare at Marinette. She only managed to hold it for a second before it dropped and she sat up abruptly. “Hey, I had a great idea.”

“What is this great idea?” Marinette asked, glancing around her desk one last time, certain that she was forgetting something. Because she _always_ forgot something.

“We should start a sewing club,” Tikki said, her legs swinging faster as she smiled at Marinette hopefully.

“You don’t get enough sewing during classes?” Marinette asked, pausing her hunt for the thing she had probably definitely forgotten in order to raise an eyebrow at Tikki. “Do I need to give you more work?”

“I get plenty,” Tikki said, her hopeful smile unabated. “But a club would be more fun.”

“A club wouldn’t have homework,” Marinette translated as she stood and zipped up her bag.

“No.” Marinette raised her eyebrow again. “Well, yes, _technically_ that would be a bonus, but that’s not the point,” Tikki said, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at her. The frown didn’t last very long (mostly because she was more or less incapable of maintaining anything more negative than mild annoyance) and her face soon dissolved into an excited grin. “We could have more time to finish our sewing projects and have club meetings with snacks and I could be president.”

“Shouldn’t that be a more democratic process?” Marinette asked with a slight smile, putting a hand on her hip. Tikki shrugged, waving away the minor detail of voting.

“Come on, Miss DC,” she said, leaning forward with her hands pressed between her knees. “I know that there are some other kids who would be interested.”

“Like who?”

“Penelope, Lucas, Deanna and Deandre,” Tikki ticked names off on her fingers, “Trixie-”

“Wait, Trixie isn’t even _in_ one of my sewing classes,” Marinette said.

“Because her two electives are taken up with art and the newspaper, so she doesn’t have room in her schedule.” Tikki held up a finger, a sly smile stretching across her face. “But she wants to _learn_.”

“And a sewing club would be a great place for her to do it,” Marinette said, shaking her head slowly. “How long has this great idea of yours been floating around?”

“Just today,” Tikki said innocently, her legs swinging. “We were talking about it at lunch. I’m sure there are even more people who’d love to learn to sew, but can’t fit Beginner’s Sewing into their schedules.” Marinette considered her, fingers drumming against her hip. She had to admit, Tikki made a good point and it _did_ sound like it could be fun…

“I’ll ask at the teacher meeting,” Marinette said. Tikki opened her mouth to say something excited, but she held up a hand. “Just a warning, there isn’t a great chance that it’ll get approved.”

“Budget?” Tikki sighed.

“Budget,” Marinette agreed. “We might be able to find a way around it, but until then, you probably shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“Okay,” Tikki said sadly. “Thanks for trying.”

“No problem,” Marinette said. She shouldered her bag and moved out from behind the desk, holding out a fist. Tikki smiled her sweet smile and granted her a bump. “Now, speaking of teacher meetings…” Marinette looked up at the big clock that _still_ failed to keep her on schedule and groaned.

“You’ve gotta go,” Tikki said, hopping off the table and pulling her backpack onto her shoulders.

“And so do you,” Marinette said, leading the way towards the door and the sound spilling in from the hallway. “One of these days your grandfather is doing to march in here and demand to know why I’ve kept you so long.”

“Nah, he wouldn’t do that,” Tikki said.

“I kind of wish he would,” Marinette said absentmindedly, preoccupied with turning off the lights and glancing around for anything that absolutely could not wait until after the meeting she was determined not to be late to. “Maybe then I’d finally get to meet him, since he never seems to be able to show up to open house nights.”

“You’ll meet him someday,” Tikki said, smiling that sly smile over her shoulder as Marinette herded her out of the classroom, the one that she smiled every time Marinette mentioned her grandfather. Another time, she might stop and try and fail to get the meaning of that smile out of her, but at that moment, she didn’t have time to play Tikki’s verbal games.

“I’m holding you to that, Tikki Mirac,” Marinette said as she closed the door behind them and hunted through her bag for her keys.

“Marinette!” She looked up from her bag to see Alya walking down the hall towards them, weaving through the remaining children milling about, all excited to go home, but reluctant to leave friends. “Look at you, all ready to go. You remembered the meeting?”

“Of course,” Marinette said, glaring at Alya before returning to digging through her bag.

“Did she really?” Alya stage-whispered to Tikki.

“She really did, Mrs. Césaire,” Tikki stage-whispered back. “Hurried me out so that she’d be on time and everything.”

“I’m proud of you, Mari,” Alya said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Look at you, all grown up and doing things on time.”

“Leave me alone,” Marinette groaned as she finally located her keys and locked the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tikki,” Marinette said pointedly.

“Bye, Miss DC,” Tikki said with a grin, waving cheerfully before she turned and ran off down the hall.

“I don’t get how that girl just runs everywhere,” Alya said, watching Tikki as she expertly flitted through the crowd.

“Neither do I,” Marinette said, shaking her head fondly. “She once told me that it’s the closest thing to flying she can get.”

“I swear, that kid was born to be some sort of magical creature,” Alya said with a loud laugh.

“I love her.”

“Same.”

“Shall we go?” Marinette asked, gesturing grandly down the hall.

“I believe we shall,” Alya responded, turning her nose up as she grandly swept off down the hall. Marinette laughed and jogged after her.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Marinette pushed open the door to Nino’s music room, exchanging the bright chatter of happy students, for the more subdued buzz of politely chatting teachers. The school didn’t have any boardrooms big enough to hold all of the teachers, and even most classrooms were a bit of a squeeze, so they had it in here, where all of them could sit and see with relative ease. Since they were arriving so close to the start of the meeting, the room was already mostly full, but when Marinette scanned the risers, her eyes caught on Nino’s waving hand and the two empty seats next to him. Alya had already seen him and was already halfway up the steps.

“Hey, you two are on time today,” Nino said, smiling at them innocently.

“Ha ha, Mr. Césaire,” Marinette said as she settled into her seat next to Alya. She smiled quickly at Ivan, who was sitting on her other side, then turned back to her friends.

“It’s Lahiffe and you know it,” Nino sighed with that long-suffering tone of his.

“If you say so, Mr. Césaire,” Adrien said, leaning around Nino so that he could grin at all of them. Nino sighed again.

“Jokes on you guys,” Nino said, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back. “Mr. Césaire’s a wonderful person to be.” He shot a wink at Alya. Adrien and Marinette made eye contact and they both rolled their eyes.

“Not according to your mother,” Alya muttered, but she knocked her shoulder against his side anyways.

“Yeah, well, mama is a crazy so.” Nino shrugged.

“Yes,” Adrien said firmly.

“True,” Marinette agreed. They all shuddered at the memory of the wrath of Amina Lahiffe when her son suggested that he change his name.

“Anyways, I’ve got a scoop about today’s meeting” Alya said quietly. Nino, Adrien, and Marinette all leaned in. “I heard that they’ve got a fix for our budget problems.”

“No way,” Adrien said, also doing his best to be quiet.

“Way,” Alya said solemnly.

“Any idea what it is?” Marinette asked, leaning her elbows on her knees to keep her legs from jiggling.

“Nope,” Alya said, her lips pursing like they always did when she couldn’t find the information she wanted. “My source couldn’t tell me a whole lot.”

“Has to be some big donor dude, right?” Nino asked, looking around at the rest of them.

“Can’t imagine what else would fix the fact that we don’t have enough money,” Adrien snorted.

“Whatever it is, I’m just glad that we’ll finally have some more flexibility,” Marinette said with a shake of her head. “One of my students was just complaining to me about the state of our sewing machines.”

“Tell me about it,” Nino said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I’ve got some instruments that are probably older than the kids.”

“It’d be nice to be able to print more copies of the newspaper,” Alya sighed. “Maybe then more people would actually _read_ it.” They all turned to Adrien.

“I, um, I’ve got a pretty good level of funding already,” Adrien said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “But I guess it’d be cool to update some of the equipment in the labs.”

“Whatever this fix is, I’m on board,” Marinette said firmly.

“I don’t know,” Alya said slowly, an odd note in her voice. They all turned to look at her.

“What? Why not?” Nino asked, his forehead creasing.

“I’m not sure, it’s just-” Alya sighed, shifting in her seat. She shook her head slightly, her eyebrows furrowing. “It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s never nothing with you,” Marinette said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. Alya smiled at her, but it faded into a frown soon after.

“I don’t know,” she said again. “My source just seemed a little-”

They never got to know what Alya’s source seemed like, because just then the double doors opened and Principal William Fu walked in, his hands clasped behind his back and his face blank. This in itself was kind of odd. Principal Fu was almost always smiling serenely, like he was on a beach wearing a Hawaiian shirt rather than running a school, but now his face was completely devoid of emotion. Behind him came Vice Principals Bustier and Mendeleiev, both of whom seemed to be trying for Fu’s blank face, but instead looking vaguely annoyed. And last there came a man that Marinette had never seen before. He was an utterly normal person in just about every regard. He wasn’t especially tall or short, fat or thin, friendly-looking or unpleasant. He wore a brown suit that fit him in a mediocre way and blended too well with his brown hair. He walked with even steps, just behind Principal Fu.

And something about him made unease trickle down Marinette’s spine.

“Maybe that’s the donor,” Nino said quietly, eyeing the unfamiliar man same as the rest of them, and probably every other teacher in the room.

“I don’t think so,” Adrien said, shaking his head.

“Why not?” Alya asked, leaning around Nino to look at him.

“His suit,” Adrien and Marinette said in unison. They looked at each other in surprise. Marinette blushed and Adrien smiled.

“What does his suit have to do with it?” Nino asked in bewilderment. They all watched as Principal Fu said something to the brown-suited man. He nodded slightly and stepped away, staying at the side of the room while Fu approached the space in the center.

“If he had the kind of money to go around giving huge chunks of it away, he wouldn’t be wearing a suit like that,” Adrien said.

“Hello, everyone,” Principal Fu called as he came to stand at the center of the room. All of the teachers immediately went silent. “I hope everyone has had a good week so far.” He smiled around at all of them, looking for a moment like his usual easy going self.

“Before we get started with our usual order of business,” Principal Fu said, his smile slipping away as he glanced to his right, where the man stood watching. When he looked back at the gathered teachers, his face was solemn, “I have some…exciting news to announce. I’m sure all of you are aware that our school has been experiencing some financial difficulties these last few years.”

“That’s an understatement,” Alya muttered, adding to the discontented murmur that passed through the crowd of teachers.

“I know it’s been hard trying to do your jobs with such limitations. Learning is free, but education is not.” Principal Fu paused for the chuckle that followed his old saying. He didn’t smile. “Luckily, those difficulties are about to change.” Another wave of sound rippled through the audience, chairs creaking as people shifted and leaned forward, voices whispering as teachers dared to hope.

“You were right,” Nino said, nudging Alya excitedly, a smile stretching across his face.

“About which part?” Alya asked, her eyes narrowed as she watched Principal Fu’s oddly blank expression.

“Luckily,” Principal Fu said, bringing attention back to the front of the room, “François Dupont Middle School has been bought out by a generous company interested in furthering education.” This time, when Principal Fu paused, the room was silent.

Marinette knew same as everyone else that being bought out wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Private schools were bought and sold all the time, same as businesses. The school could change hands without changing the way it ran, especially if Principal Fu was staying in charge. This new company that owned them could just give them more money and allow them to operate as normal. It didn’t have to be a bad thing.

Marinette and Alya exchanged a glance, the same unease reflected in both their eyes.

It didn’t have to be a bad thing…

“I have someone here who can explain it all much better than I can.” Master Fu gestured towards the side of the room, where the brown-suited man stepped forward, his eyes turning towards the listening teachers, his gaze cold and impassive. “May I introduce Mr. Vide, the official representative of the Hawkmoth Corporation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Things begin to change...


	2. Open Books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day one of the Hawkmoth occupation...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Time: After an otherwise normal day of school, Marinette and friends went to the weekly teacher meeting and learned that the school had been bought out by the Hawkmoth Corporation.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Alya burst out as the classroom door softly clicked shut behind Adrien. She’d waited until there was a wall between them and the rest of their co-workers, but just barely. With Nino’s room still filled with lingering teachers, Alya’s room had been the closest refuge. The tables were arranged in a large, somewhat cramped circle; the walls were decorated with large posters of classic book covers; there was a series of bursting bookshelves lining the back wall, and a cluster of beanbags nestled in a corner. This was Alya’s space, burning in the fading light of sunset that was all that was left after the long meeting they’d endured. This was her space, which meant she had the freedom to be as pissed as she pleased.

“Alya-” Nino started. He abruptly stopped and put his hands up in surrender when she spun on him, face screwed up in one of her more intense glowers. He looked over at Marinette, who just shook her head and jerked a thumb at one of the tables. He nodded and dropped into the closest chair, crossing his arms over his chest and settling in to watch his wife pace back and forth in the center of the classroom. Adrien took one look at Alya and followed suit. Marinette leaned her hip against the side of the table and watched her pace with the others.

“This is a hostile takeover, plain and simple,” Alya said, long, angry steps carrying her across her classroom.

“It’s not exactly simple,” Adrien said with a soothing voice, a foolish move by the person least experienced with an enraged Alya. He gulped when she glared at him, but he insisted, “It’s not. Mr. Vide sounded genuinely interested in helping the school.”

“He certainly seemed interested in changing it,” Alya said with a shake of her head, reaching the other side of the circle and abruptly turning on her heel. “’Maximize student potential’ and ‘make output more efficient?’ This is a school, not a factory. Next thing you know we’ll have to take all the standardized tests and have regulated curriculums.”

“Babe, you don’t know that,” Nino said softly.

“And what was up with that stupid reformation plan he was talking about? The- the-” Alya pointed at Marinette, her eyebrows drawn.

“The Akuma System,” Marinette supplied.

“Yes, that.” Alya crossed her arms, pivoting in place and beginning her journey back to the other side of the classroom. “Why do they need to reform our programs? Our programs are fine. They’re great! Our students _love_ them.”

“They have to ‘maximize’ remember?” Marinette sighed, shifting her hip against the table.

“You think this is bad news too?” Adrien asked, looking away from Alya’s frenetic pacing to consider Marinette. Her face began to heat even though now was definitely not the time, but she swallowed down the lump in her throat and shrugged.

“I think it’s possible,” Marinette said carefully, one eye on Alya, the rest of her attention parsing through everything that had been said during that meeting. “Nino was right that we don’t actually know what’s going to happen, but you have to admit that a lot of things that the rep guy- Mr. Vide- was saying sounded kind of shady. Like ‘increasing marketability?’ That doesn’t sound very good to me.”

“Exactly.” Alya snapped her fingers at Marinette. “It sounded like they’re trying to get the school to make money and that can only be bad for us and for the students.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Adrien said, glancing between Alya and Marinette. He looked over at Nino, but he just shrugged. “That could mean that we get more funding for our programs. If the school makes more money, Marinette could get her sewing machines; Nino could get his instruments; you could get your newspapers. Making money hasn’t been our main goal before, but making it more of a priority now doesn’t mean that everything’s going to go bad.”

“That’s only if the extra money goes back into the school,” Alya said, her lip curling. “The Hawkmoth Corporation is a for-profit business. Do you really think they’re going to use that money to benefit the kids?” She waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll line their pockets.”

“How do you know that they’re for-profit?” Adrien asked, his eyebrows furrowing. “Mr. Vide didn’t say anything about that in his speech.”

“I got pissed off halfway through, so I started googling to channel the rage into something productive.” Alya paused her pacing to take out her phone and wave it.

“How did I not notice that?” Adrien asked, looking at Nino in bewilderment.

“I have practice,” Alya said, turning sharply and walking towards the other side of the room as she slipped the phone back in her pocket. “What kind of name is Hawkmoth anyways? Sounds like a bad supervillain.”

“This still doesn’t mean that they’re going to be bad for the school,” Nino sighed, rubbing a hand across his head. “Just because they’re looking to make a profit doesn’t mean that they’re going to disregard the needs or wants of the students. The students are the audience here.”

“No, the parents are the audience,” Alya muttered.

“The parents,” Marinette sighed. The others all sighed with her. “Why can’t they all be the good ones?”

“How else would our lives be made difficult?” Adrien asked cheerfully.

“Hostile takeovers from shady corporations,” Alya grumbled.

“Alya, this doesn’t mean-” Adrien started, his legendary patience wearing thin if the exasperation in his voice was anything to go by.

“You’re right, it doesn’t have to mean bad things,” Marinette said quickly. Adrien looked up at her in surprise and her cheeks began to turn red right on cue. However, Alya glared at her for the apparent betrayal and she quickly got past it. “But we have to ask how exactly they plan on achieving all of these things. Maximizing and reforming and marketing. Good or bad, it all means that, at least for the time being, we won’t have control over our own programs.”

Everyone fell silent.

Nino frowned down at the table. Adrien tilted his head at Marinette, his eyebrows furrowed. Even Alya slowed her pacing, blinking like the reality of this hadn’t occurred to her in her anger.

Good or bad, they were losing control…

“Marinette’s got a point,” Nino said at last, heaving a loud sigh. “We don’t have a choice. Whether this is hostile or benevolent or whatever, we can’t exactly go against the new owner of the school.”

“Fu is still in charge,” Adrien said, though his voice was a little less firm than it had been.

“Did you see his face that entire meeting?” Alya asked, finally stopping, her arms folded less in containment of her anger and more in protection.

“He didn’t have any expression the whole damn time,” Nino said thoughtfully.

“Because he felt the need to hide what he really felt,” Alya sighed. “Fu may still be the principal, but I have a feeling things are out of his hands.”

“I still think it’s going to be okay,” Adrien said, his face set in the most optimistic stubbornness Marinette had ever seen. It made her heart trip over itself, the look on his face, like he wasn’t going to let it be any other way.

“Alright, sunshine. You have fun with that.” A mischievous grin suddenly slunk across Alya’s face. Adrien barely had time to look alarmed before she dived forward and dragged her fingers through his hair, ruffling it past repair. It probably said the worst about Marinette that she thought he still looked beautiful this way, breathlessly laughing and swatting ineffectually at Alya’s hands.

“Cut it out,” he cried between laughs. Alya obligingly backed off, looking pleased with herself as Adrien did his best to glare at her and tried to rearrange his hair. Marinette though he looked distressingly wonderful with his hair forced out of its normal tidiness, but she forced herself to ignore it as best she could. Which was terribly. “Not all of us want to see the worst in the world, Alya.”

“That’s me. Regular Debbie Downer.” Alya winked at him, a smirk curving her lips.

“Come on, Debbie,” Nino said, hauling himself out of his chair and holding a hand out to Alya. “I’m tired and hungry. Let’s worry about this Vide guy tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Alya relented, picking up her bag and taking Nino’s hand. “It’s unlikely that things will start changing right away anyways.”

“Right,” Marinette said, shouldering her own bag and leading the way to the door. “It’ll probably take a couple days for Mr. Vide to start shaking things up.”

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Marinette walked through the front door of the school and her first thought was that it didn’t look like it was being taken over. The atrium looked the same as it always did, bathed in bright morning light flooding through the large skylights, the panther mascot painted large across the inner wall in the school colors, red and black. Perhaps it was a little shabby, with the worn wooden floors and the walls stained by the fingers of many children, but it was pleasant and warm, with student projects hanging along the walls from all different classes. This was her school and it didn’t look like anything had changed, like there was any sort of hostile takeover going on. It was still too early to tell, but perhaps Adrien had been right.

Perhaps this wasn’t as bad as it seemed…

Marinette put thoughts of takeovers out of her head and continued on through the atrium. For once, she was only running a _little bit_ late. She was still going to get teased when she got to the teacher’s lounge and she’d probably missed all of the bacon tacos (Nino and Alya brought breakfast tacos every Thursday and the bacon ones were the _best_ ), but by her standards, she was basically early. She was close enough to being on time that there were still a few students hurrying through the halls to their classes and a few daring teachers taking their time getting to their classrooms. Marinette traded a fist bump with Alix as they passed one another, Alix smugly taking a bite out of her distinctly bacon-y breakfast taco. All in all, Marinette was feeling rather proud of herself as she turned the corner towards the teacher’s lounge.

She continued to feel proud right up until she heard an all too familiar voice.

And then she realized that she had miscalculated.

Because you see, there was a science to arriving at school that Marinette didn’t normally have to worry about. Get to school too late and you were trapped. Get to school too early and you were caught. _Normally,_ Marinette was able to avoid this interaction. Because _normally_ , she arrived late enough that this wasn’t even a possibility. _Normally,_ she was tardy enough that all of the parents had already cleared out.

But today, she was just early enough and just late enough to fall into a very delicate window of misery.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng,” the voice called, high and grating and too annunciated to be comfortable. Marinette briefly considered making a run for it, the teacher’s lounge was just a couple doors away, but she decided that it wasn’t worth the backlash she’d receive. Instead, she sighed, accepted her fate, and turned to face the narrowed eyes of Chloé Bourgeois, president of the PTA and professional thorn in Marinette’s side.

“Good morning, Miss Bourgeois,” Marinette said as pleasantly as she could manage, pasting a bland smile on her face. Sabrina walked up behind Chloé, looking sort of sheepish, but mostly just snooty, as she always did around Chloé. Marinette couldn’t help but sigh again, air hissing out through her plaster smile.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. Why haven’t you answered my emails?” Chloé demanded, planting her perfectly manicured hands on her hips and tapping the toe of her expensive flat as she frowned.

 _Because your emails are dumb_ , Marinette thought.

“Must have slipped my mind,” Marinette said.

“Well?” Chloé asked, her nails (color coordinated with her pantsuit) tapped her hips impatiently.

“Well,” Marinette said, hoping against hope that she’d just let it go.

“Are you going to donate the paint-by-numbers class for the fundraiser or not?” Chloé snapped.

“Miss Bourgeois,” Marinette said slowly, frantically casting about for any possible reason she could say no. “I…don’t have much experience teaching a paint-by-numbers class.” She held in her wince when Chloé’s eyes narrowed further.

“You, one of the art teachers, don’t know how to teach painting?” Chloé asked, a smirk tugging at her lips. “What exactly do they pay you for?” She let out a sickeningly fake laugh. A second later Sabrina laughed too.

“I know how to teach painting,” Marinette said hotly, hand clenching around the strap of her bag. Chloé immediately stopped laughing, her smirk widening. Marinette quickly continued, “It’s just that my students don’t need to paint-by-numbers. They’re more skilled than that.”

“Well then maybe you should do some of what you do in class. If it’s so easy that _middle schoolers_ can do it, then you won’t have any problem teaching bidders,” Chloé said lightly, the edge of insult in her voice almost covered by the sheer force of her venomous politeness.

“I doubt that bidders would have any interest in middle school art projects, since they’re _so easy_.” Marinette smiled sweetly when Chloé scowled.

“If they’re really so easy, then my child would be doing better in your class,” Chloé hissed, her polite veneer cracking as her hands slipped from her hips and balled into fists.

“Miss Bourgeois, we’ve been over this,” Marinette said, reaching for the patience that always ran thin where Chloé was concerned. “I would be happy to help your child improve their grades if you’d tell me who they are-”

“I shouldn’t _have_ to tell you,” Chloé burst out. “We look _exactly_ alike.”

“And apparently have different last names,” Marinette said, giving up and letting the exasperation leak into her voice. Chloé glared at her, her fists still curled tightly, her body taught. For a second, Marinette thought she was going to stomp her foot or attack her (neither of which were too far out of the purview for her, the woman was crazy and Marinette had no idea how she got elected for a second year, much less a first), but then she sucked in a deep breath and when she let it out, her normal and slightly less insane smirk was back.

“You know, I’m glad that the Hawkmoth Corporation has bought out the school,” Chloé said slyly. Marinette stiffened. “I hope Mr. Vide will change things for the better around here.”

“You know about that,” Marinette said flatly, shooting a spare glare at Sabrina. She had the grace to look a little more sheepish.

“Of course,” Chloé said airily, tossing her painstakingly coiffed hair over her shoulder. “I’m great friends with Roger Damocles. I’m sure you know him, he’s on the school board? And naturally, I have my weekly meetings with Principal Fu as part of my duties as PTA president.”

“Right,” Marinette gritted out, turning her glare away from Sabrina. However, she still looked embarrassed, so it was likely that Chloé had learned more from _her_ than from the illustrious sources she was citing. “I guess we’ll see what Mr. Vide and the Hawkmoth Corporation will do.”

“I guess we will,” Chloé said smugly.

“Well, it was nice talking to you, always a pleasure,” Marinette said quickly, turning on her heel and speed-walking down the hall towards safety. It took Chloé a second to register her escape, but by the time she did, Marinette already had her hand on the door to the teacher’s lounge.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng!” Chloé called with her signature nails-on-a-chalkboard screech, just as Marinette slipped inside and closed the door, teachers-only sign and all. As always, she worried for a moment that this would be the time that Chloé would ignore the sign and barge in anyways, and she held her breath, listening for the telltale clicking of Chloe’s shoes. However, there was only silence.

“You okay?” Alya asked. Marinette looked up to find Alya watching her with an eyebrow raised.

“Got attacked by President Copter Mom,” Marinette sighed, letting out her breath.

“Ew,” Alya said, wrinkling her nose. “Was Sabrina with her again?”

“What do you think?” Marinette rolled her eyes and pushed away from the door.

Alya sighed. “Dang it, Sabrina. You know, she’d actually be an okay person if she didn’t hang around Chloé all the-” Alya abruptly stopped, shaking her head. “Wait, that’s not important right now.”

“Not important?” Marinette asked, bewildered. Alya was _always_ down for griping about Chloé. What could possibly be more important?

Marinette finally looked around the teacher’s lounge and noticed for the first time that the normal group of teachers was not lounging around munching on tacos and ready to tease her like they usually were on Thursday mornings. Instead, the bags of delicious, handmade, foil-wrapped tacos sat untouched to one side of the table and everyone was standing clustered around Nathaniel on the other side. They were all quiet, their faces serious.

“What’s going on?” Marinette asked, worry clenching in her stomach. She didn’t even blush when Adrien looked up and met her eyes. His face was grimmer than she’d ever seen it.

“Hawkmoth is moving a little faster than we thought,” he said, his voice tight.

“You mean…” Marinette blinked, looking from Adrien to Nino standing beside him to Alya.

“Nathaniel has been Akumatized,” Alya said, her nose wrinkling again, but this time it was more than mere annoyance.

“Akumatized?” Marinette looked over at Nathaniel. He was watching them now, listening with a blank expression on his face. Rose was patting his shoulder reflexively, but it didn’t seem like either she or Nathaniel were really aware of it.

“His program has been targeted for reformation with that stupid Akuma System,” Alya explained in a rush of bitter words. “It’s being Akumatized.”

“Coming up with lingo already?” Marinette joked, though it sounded weak even to her own ears. However, it got Alya to crack a smile and softened the anger hardening her face.

“Someone has to,” Alya said with a shrug, her smile reluctantly widening a little more. “The English teacher seems to suit the task.” The smile faded much more quickly than it had come and she looked back at Nathaniel. Nino separated from the group and stepped up next to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders. She relaxed into him, but only a little.

“How is it being changed?” Marinette asked. She was surprised when Nathaniel held out an envelope to her. She blinked at him as she adjusted her bag on her shoulder and stepped forward to take it.

“You have to read it to truly appreciate it,” Nathaniel said, his soft voice uncharacteristically bitter, like biting into an apple and finding it sour.

“Okay,” Marinette said slowly. She turned the envelope over in her hands, the dark purple paper so smooth under her fingertips it was almost silky. She opened it carefully and slid out the thick sheet of paper folded inside. When she unfolded it, she found a purple logo embossed at the top, a butterfly in flight, with the name of the company in elegant scroll underneath.

“This injunctive has been issued by the Hawkmoth Corporation,” Marinette read aloud, “as dictated to Mr. Nooroo-”

“Jerks can’t even write it themselves,” Alya muttered. Marinette gave her a look and she held up her hands, but she didn’t seem all that repentant. She returned to scanning over the letter, this time silently. She was hyperaware of the rest waiting for her, watching for her reaction, so much so that it was hard to concentrate on decoding the twisted rhetoric of the letter. However, it wasn’t so hard that Marinette missed the obvious.

“They’re reducing your funding?!” she burst out.

“Yeah,” Nathaniel said, all quiet acidity. Rose patted his shoulder.

“But this whole thing is supposed to be about increasing funding,” she said indignantly.

“My favorite part,” Alya said, stepping away from Nino to point to the place on the letter, “is where they try to justify it by saying that the new curriculum he’s ‘highly encouraged’ to use is made to fit within that budget, so he really shouldn’t need more money than that.”

“What about when they say that the removed money will go to ‘necessary’ programs?” Juleka asked, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at the letter like she could set it on fire just by staring hard enough. Rose reached over and patted her shoulder too.

Nathaniel let out a harsh laugh that made Marinette jump. “I like how they’re assigning me the high honor of creating ‘relatable advertisement’ for them.” She rapidly scanned the letter for that section and sucked in a breath when she found it.

“They’re having you make propaganda,” Marinette said in disbelief, looking around the room for someone who could contradict her. Nathaniel just nodded; Rose continued patting shoulders; Juleka kept glaring; Myléne was twisting her hands, her lips pressed together to keep herself from humming like she sometimes did when she was nervous; Alya was, of course, furious and Nino’s fingers were twitching like he needed something to do with them, which is what _he_ did when he was nervous. Even Adrien, the eternal optimist, looked at a loss. “What the _hell_?”

“That’s what I said.” Alya looked like she was seconds away from trying to pace the cramped room.

“This is like something out of a dystopian novel,” Marinette muttered, staring down at the letter in her hands.

“Tell me about it,” Alya said, throwing up her hands and narrowly avoiding smacking Marinette in the face. Nathaniel stood up suddenly, drawing all eyes to him as he towered above all of them except for Nino. Rose blinked at her hand in surprise as it slid off his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Marinette asked softly. Nathaniel looked at her for a moment, considering her carefully like he genuinely didn’t know the answer.

“Yeah, I just-” Nathaniel sighed, brushing his bright red hair away from his face. He gestured to the letter. “I’m supposed to meet with Mr. Vide as soon as possible to discuss the new curriculum and- and the art I’m going to be doing for them.”

Marinette looked down at the letter and sure enough, near the bottom: _Please meet with your HMC representative at your earliest convenience_.

“I won’t have time later, so I kind of have to do it now.” He stepped past Rose and the others and slowly took the letter back from Marinette, his head bowed.

“Wait,” Alya said, quickly walking over to the forgotten bags on the table and taking out three foil-wrapped packets marked with b’s for bacon. “Take some with you. For later.”

“Thanks,” Nathaniel said quietly, his lips quirking into an almost-smile. He looked around at the rest of them. “I’ll tell you guys how it goes, I guess.” Then he turned and left, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

It was a loud kind of silence that followed his exit, the kind filled with the racing thoughts of the people left behind, all thinking the same things, all worrying about the same things, all anxious and upset and perhaps just a little bit afraid, but no one daring to bring those thoughts into the real world, to commit them to sound and discussion and memory. And so, each sat isolated in their own identical worries, only venturing out to exchange tense glances.

And so, there was silence.

Until Marinette cleared her throat.

“This is crazy,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” Alya agreed, her righteous energy having left with Nathaniel. “It’s happening much faster than I thought it would.”

“I didn’t think any funding was going to _decrease_ ,” Adrien said, with all the forlorn disappointment of the optimist denied.

“Yeah,” Alya said again, with all the bitter weariness of the realist proved right. She sucked in a breath, then let it out in a quick huff. Then she lowered herself down into a chair, wincing as her knees bent, and dragged the bags of tacos closer. She took one out and tossed it at Nino. He raised an eyebrow at her. She gave him a small smile. “We put a lot of work into these tacos. I’m not gonna let them go to waste just because Hawkmoth has got a stick up its-”

“I’ll take a taco,” Marinette said, stepping up to Alya’s side and peering over her shoulder. “Are there any bacon ones left?” Alya poked through the bags, looking for the b’s that marked the bacon tacos, and Marinette held her breath.

“Nope,” Alya said. Marinette let out a huff. “I think I gave the last ones to Nathaniel.” Marinette sighed and sat down in the chair next to Alya, setting her bag on the floor. She couldn’t complain about it; he definitely needed them more.

“You know, maybe if you actually showed up on time, you’d get one,” Nino said, a teasing smile crossing his face as he took his usual seat on the other side of Alya. The others were taking their normal seats as well, leaving only Nathaniel’s empty chair as a sign that this was not any other morning, laughing as they ate breakfast together, carefree.

“It wasn’t even entirely my fault this morning,” Marinette protested, sadly accepting the sausage and potato tacos that Alya handed her. “I got stalled by Miss Bother.”

“What did she want this time?” Myléne asked, leaning forward and taking a taco for herself.

“To bully me into auctioning off a paint-by-numbers class at the fundraiser,” Marinette said, rolling her eyes as she unwrapped her sausage taco. “And accuse me of not teaching her child well enough again.”

“Ew,” Alya said, wrinkling her nose again. “Has anyone figured out which child is hers yet?”

“No,” Marinette groaned, taking a vicious bite of her taco and savoring the taste. It wasn’t the bacon, but it was still tasty.

“Did she do that thing where she gets all indignant that you’ve asked which kid is hers?” Rose giggled as she fiddled with the foil from Juleka’s taco.

“Oh, yeah. And she insisted that the kid looks _just_ like her,” Marinette said, shaking her head.

“Has anyone tried looking it up?” Nino asked. Everyone turned as one to look at Alya.

“You can’t search by parent in the student database,” she said with a sigh. They all continued to look at her. “And she won’t accept my friend request on Facebook.” Everyone sighed.

“She sent me a friend request last year,” Adrien said, taking a bite of his taco. He froze in his chewing when everyone turned to look at _him_.

“Chloé Bourgeois sent you a friend request?” Alya asked, an eyebrow rising.

“Dude,” Nino said.

“What?” Adrien asked, looking around at everyone. “It’s not like I accepted it.”

“Dang it,” Alya sighed. “I wish you had. I could have used you to snoop on her.”

“No way,” Adrien said with a firm shake of his head. “That woman does _not_ want to talk to me about paint-by-numbers classes.”

“Yeah, she’s creepy when it comes to you, dude,” Nino said. He gave an exaggerated shudder that sent little bits of egg bouncing across the table. Adrien sighed at that unfortunate truth. He threw a rueful glance at Marinette, who could do little more than grin back nervously.

“The venerable President Perv doesn’t take no for an answer,” Alya said, expertly imitating Chloé’s haughty voice and looking down her nose at the rest of the table. Then a mischievous glint snuck into her eyes and she worryingly glanced sidelong at Marinette before turning to Adrien. “You know, as long as you’re single, she’ll probably continue to bother you.” Marinette promptly choked on her taco.

“I know,” Adrien sighed. Then he quirked an eyebrow at Marinette. “You okay?”

“Yup,” Marinette choked out. “All good. Just- just need some water.” She stood up with her cheeks burning and retreated to the water cooler in the corner.

“There’s an easy way to fix that,” Alya said, her voice sly and endlessly amused. Marinette saw what was coming clear as day, but she was powerless to stop it.

“What is it?” Adrien asked innocently, and Marinette could practically hear him perking up all hopeful, like an adorable sweater-and-tie-wearing puppy.

“Get yourself a partner,” Alya said, and even though Marinette had been expecting it, she still choked on the little sip of water she’d taken.

“Marinette?” Adrien asked. “You sure you okay?”

“Yeah,” Marinette said, her voice rasping past her protesting vocal cords and her eyes watering as she threw a thumbs up over her shoulder. “Water just went down the wrong tube, I’m fine.” She heard Alya and Nino snickering and decided that neither of them were going to be getting the pastries they wanted next Wednesday.

“Okay,” Adrien said, sounding like he seriously doubted this. Marinette didn’t blame him. She gave another thumbs up, but didn’t dare turn around lest she blind Adrien with her brightly burning cheeks.

“As I was saying,” Alya continued blithely, as if she weren’t actively trying to murder Marinette, “if you start dating someone, then President Pucker Up might just leave you alone.”

“That seems like a bad reason to start dating,” Adrien said hesitantly.

“Not at all,” Alya said airily, probably waving a hand at him. “I’m sure you’ll choose someone nice enough to completely understand your plight and want to help.”

“I- Marinette, are you sure you’re alright?” Adrien asked. “You’ve been over there a while.” Marinette sighed as her cheeks, which had started to cool a little, went right back to full heat. She fixed a normalish smile on her face as she turned around, her little plastic cup clutched tightly in her hand.

“I’m fine,” Marinette said firmly, walking over and sitting down next to Alya as calmly as she could. “Thanks for asking, _Adrien_.” Marinette glared pointedly at Alya, who just continued to grin at her widely.

“What were you going to say?” Rose asked ever so helpfully. She just shrugged when Marinette sent her a pained look and smiled at Adrien encouragingly. Myléne and Juleka similarly ignored her plight and Nino was never any help, just sitting back with an amused smile and watching his wife wreak havoc.

“I-” Adrien stopped and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, his cheeks beginning to turn a little red.

“We don’t have to keep talking about this if you don’t want to,” Marinette said quickly. She received a hard jab to her ribs and she elbowed back.

“No, it’s just…where would I even find someone?” Adrien asked, his cheeks turning even redder.

“Dude,” Nino said, his amusement put on a backburner for a moment in favor of staring at him. “Have you seen yourself?”

“You can find someone if you want to, Adrien,” Rose said, clasping her hands to her chest. “You’d make a _great_ boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there are _plenty_ of people who’d like to date you,” Alya said, grinning widely. Marinette elbowed her and Alya jabbed right back.

“Thanks guys,” Adrien said, ducking his head shyly, which was honestly too adorable to be safe for Marinette’s general well-being. “I’ve just never…um…”

“You’ve never dated?” Myléne blurted, her eyes wide.

“I’ve dated,” Adrien said quickly, his cheeks about as red as Marinette’s now. “I’ve just never, um. Asked anyone out.”

“Oh my god,” Alya said quietly, momentarily distracted from her goal. “Everyone you’ve ever dated has asked _you_ out, haven’t they?”

“Um.” Adrien’s shoulders rose next to his ears.

“Oh my god,” Alya said again, shaking her head in wonder.

“Leave him alone,” Marinette said, elbowing Alya again. Instead of elbowing back, she just turned and gave her a pointed look. Marinette immediately looked away, unfortunately intercepting Adrien’s grateful glance and letting out the quietest of involuntary squeaks before looking down at the safe expanse of the table and resolving to never look anywhere else ever again.

“I’ll stop,” Alya said, trying for casual, but too close to bursting out laughing to truly manage it. Marinette would have glared at her, but her new arrangement with the table was working out pretty well so far. “But you should think about it, sunshine. A partner would work wonders.”

“Especially a boyfriend,” Juleka said. Alya and Marinette (abandoning her table strategy) both whipped their heads up to stare at her. She shrugged. “She’d definitely leave you alone if she thought you weren’t interested in girls.”

“But a girlfriend would make her jealous,” Alya said quickly, too good at what she did to sound _panicked_ exactly, but the closest she ever got.

“I don’t want to make her _jealous_ ,” Adrien said doubtfully. “I just want her to leave me alone.”

“A girlfriend would do that just as well as a boyfriend,” Alya said with that almost-panicked voice.

“No, you had a good point,” Myléne said thoughtfully. “A girlfriend would make her jealous and even more crazy. A boyfriend might get her off your tail.”

“That makes sense,” Adrien said slowly. “Good thinking, Alya.” She gave him a pained look.

“Oh, but what if she just decides that she needs to turn him back straight,” Rose said, her face screwing up in annoyance. “That happens sometimes.”

“True,” Juleka said with a shrug.

“So, you should just find somebody that makes _you_ happy and not worry about it,” Nino said firmly, clapping a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. Marinette let out the breath she’d been holding and mentally added Nino’s favorite pastry back to the menu.

“Exactly,” Alya said, giving Nino a grateful look.

“I think I can do that,” Adrien said slowly, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Thanks, guys.”

“Any time, dude,” Nino said, patting Adrien’s shoulder.

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll find someone here,” Alya said with a wide smile.

“I’ve gotta go,” Marinette said, standing abruptly before she could hear a response to _that_ and wrapping up the remains of her taco.

“Aw, why?” Alya asked innocently, pouting up at her as she swung her bag over her shoulder.

“I’ve got some annoyances I have to take care of before class,” Marinette said pointedly. Alya’s pout dissolved into a grin, amused and completely unrepentant.

“Thanks for your help, Marinette,” Adrien said, his smile much more sincere than Alya’s, sending Marinette’s overworked cheeks heating again and her heart beating just a little too fast.

“No problem,” she said, hoping that her voice sounded airy rather than breathless or faint. Rather than stand there and smile nervously, she turned tail and hurried out the door, throwing a wave over her shoulder so that she didn’t have a chance to stutter through a proper farewell.

Just before she closed the door behind her, blocking out Alya’s chuckles, she heard Adrien say, “I hope she’s okay.”

And if that wasn’t a good show of why Marinette had a ridiculous grade school crush on the man, she didn’t know what was.

And if there was anything to show exactly _how_ bad it was, it was that she didn’t think about Nathaniel’s Akumatization until she passed his classroom on her way to her own, the lights off, the room empty.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

“Hey, Miss DC,” Tikki said as she swung through the door of Marinette’s classroom.

“Hey, Tikki,” Marinette said. She waved at her before turning back to Penelope and looking over her sketch once more. She glanced up at her, noted her hands nervously fiddling with her pencil, and smiled. “This looks really good, Penelope.”

“You think?” she asked, perking up, the worried frown on her face dissolving into a sunny smile.

“Yeah,” Marinette said, holding out the sketch and pointing to it. “I really like the details you put into the skirt. They’re pleats, right?” Penelope nodded quickly, her ponytail swinging with the force of it. “They look really nice. I can see how you want them to fall, which is really impressive.”

“Thank you,” Penelope said quietly. She ducked her head, her cheeks turning pink in a way Marinette could sympathize with.

“You’re welcome,” she said, handing the sketch back to her. Penelope took it, looking down at it with a pleased little smile. Marinette moved away from her table with a warmth in her chest that she couldn’t help but cling to. No matter what there would surely still be these moments.

Right?

The sixth period bell rung, catching Marinette off guard with the loud music just like it did every time. She glanced at her clock and sighed. The bell ended, but the classroom stayed noisy as students began packing up their things.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Marinette called, watching her students bustle around her, putting away sketches and pencils, hurrying to put one last touch on their illustrations. “Don’t forget to find a designer you’d like to research. We’ll be signing up for presentation topics tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you in Costuming, Miss DC,” Penelope said as she shouldered a backpack that was frankly too large for her.

“See you then, Penelope,” Marinette said. “Have fun in math.”

“I will,” she said cheerfully. “I like math.” Marinette wrinkled her nose and Penelope giggled.

“I like math better when I don’t have to do it,” Marinette said quietly, leaning in conspiratorially. “Don’t tell Miss Raincomprix.”

“I won’t tell,” Penelope giggled, clutching the straps of her backpack. She also leaned in. “I feel that way about English.” She sighed sadly.

“Should I tell Mrs. Césaire to go easier on you?” Marinette asked, putting on her sternest face.

“Oh no! Mrs. Césaire is great!” Penelope said quickly, looking distressed. She relaxed when Marinette laughed, giggling along after a moment. “I just don’t like reading very much is all.” She ducked her head, looking down at her shoes. Marinette could see the tops of her ears turn a little pink and she could sympathize with that too.

“Hm. I guess there’s just something different for each of us.” She winked when Penelope peeked up at her and smiled when she tentatively smiled back. “You should get going. Don’t want to keep your favorite subject waiting.” Penelope shook her head quickly.

“I can’t keep my favorite subject waiting,” she said shyly. “It just finished.” With that, she scurried out of the room, sparing a wave for Tikki on the way out.

“I love her,” Tikki said firmly once Penelope was gone, the last student out as per usual.

“I do too,” Marinette said, moving to the door to close it. “Though it always blows my mind that she’s a seventh grader. I know she skipped a grade or two, but still.” Out in the hall, there were still students buzzing, as there would be for the next few minutes of the long passing period, but in her room, there was quiet, as there always was during her free seventh period.

“I get what you mean,” Tikki said as she hopped up on her customary table. “She’s just too cute to be a seventh grader.”

“There’s a cuteness threshold for seventh graders?” Marinette asked, quirking an eyebrow at Tikki as she made her way to her desk.

“Yes.” Tikki nodded her head emphatically.

“You were a seventh grader just last year,” Marinette pointed out as she dropped into her chair.

“Yeah, and I’m not cute anymore,” Tikki said proudly. Marinette paused, taking in the cute pigtails her curly hair was pulled into, the cute polka dotted shirt she was wearing that matched with her cute spotted sneakers, and the cute smirk on her face. She decided that it was better not to say anything on that matter.

 “I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said instead, “how do you always get here before the bell rings?”

“Miss Kubdel always lets us go early,” Tikki said with a shrug. Then she grinned. “And I’m fast.”

“I believe both of those statements,” Marinette said with a snort. She reached into her bottom drawer and pulled out the folder of ungraded quizzes that she’d meant to work on the night before and had completely forgotten. “I have work for you, Miss Teacher’s Aid.”

“Nice,” Tikki said, hopping off of the desk and taking the folder. She flipped it open and scanned the first sheet. “Sixth-grade art quizzes?”

“Yup. Rubric is on the top. Same drill as always,” Marinette said.

“Got it,” Tikki said, taking a red pen from the desk and wandering over to her table to get started on the grading.

“What did I ever do without you, Tikki?” Marinette sighed.

“A lot more grading, that’s for sure,” Tikki said, shooting a smile at her as she hopped back up onto the table and folding one leg under her. “And probably despaired over the lack of Tikki in your life.”

“I still had you for two classes. Same as this year.” Marinette shook her head fondly as she took opened her laptop.

“Yeah, but you didn’t get to just talk to me in those classes,” Tikki said, completely undeterred by technicalities.

“I don’t get to just talk to you now,” Marinette said, pointedly looking at the folder of quizzes sitting on the table next to her. “I don’t know how you managed to convince administration to let you be my aid during my free period-”

“Magic.” Tikki waggled her eyebrows.

“-but I expect you to work for your freedom,” Marinette said as sternly as she was able. Tikki just laughed at her, but she still picked up the first quiz. Marinette smiled and turned her attention to her own work, opening the instructions for the designer presentation so that she could double check them before printing. Alya had had a few suggestions…

There was quiet in the room for a few minutes, only broken by the seventh period bell, turning paper, clacking keys.

“Miss DC?” Tikki asked about five minutes into the period.

“What’s up?” Marinette asked absentmindedly, trying to figure out which wording of a certain line of instructions was better.

“I heard that the school got bought out.” Marinette looked up from her computer. Tikki wasn’t looking at her, scanning down the quiz in her hands, pausing to mark a question wrong. She glanced up when Marinette didn’t answer, meeting her eye. “Is it true?”

Marinette sighed, sitting back in her chair. “I guess there’s not much point in lying about it. We found out yesterday.”

“The teachers?” Tikki asked, returning to scanning the quiz.

“The teachers,” Marinette confirmed.

“What do you think about it?” Tikki asked carefully, drawing an x through a question, her eyes just briefly flicking up at her.

“You can pause for a moment, Tikki,” Marinette said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the desk.

“I thought you said I had to work for my freedom,” Tikki said teasingly, but she scribbled numbers at the top of the quiz and set it aside with the others she’d finished and gave her her full attention.

“You’ve earned a break.” Marinette waved the matter aside lightly with a small smile.

“That serious, huh?” Tikki shot for joking, but landed a little closer to worried.

“I…I don’t really know.” Marinette sighed again, lacing her fingers together and resting her chin on the bridge they formed. “It could be serious. It could also be that we’re overreacting and everything will be just fine. But from everything that I’ve seen so far…I think it’s serious.”

“Is the school going to change?” Tikki asked, her normally cheerful face somber and thoughtful.

“At least a little. The new owner is a company and the representative made it sound like they have big plans.”

“I don’t want the school to change,” Tikki said softly.

Marinette hesitated. “Neither do I,” she admitted. “But we don’t know that it’s going to change for the worse yet.”

 _Just that they’re willing to decrease funding to do it_ , she thought.

“So it _could_ be okay?” Tikki asked tentatively.

Marinette hesitated. Then she nodded.

“But you don’t think it’s going to be,” Tikki said.

Marinette hesitated. Then she sighed. “I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Tikki said quietly.

“Whatever happens, all of us teachers will make sure you guys are taken care of,” Marinette said firmly. “That will never change.”

Tikki eyed Marinette for a moment. Then she smiled, bright and cheerful. “I know that.”

“Then don’t worry too much, okay?” Marinette smiled back, trying to impart hope she didn’t feel.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tikki said, sketching a salute in her usual cheeky fashion, her smile widening into a grin.

“Good.” Marinette gave an approving nod. Then she frowned. “Now get back to work.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” Tikki picked up her next quiz with a smile.

Marinette smiled too as she went back to her work. However, she was distracted as she tried to proofread the document. She read the same line over and over before she finally gave up and just submitted it for printing. She’d probably regret it later, but for now, she could only think of two things:

A purple envelope and an uncertain future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Marinette has enough...


	3. Study for Quizzes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Time: The gang discussed the possible repercussions of the HMC takeover and went through day one of the HMC occupation. PTA President Chloé popped up to make Marinette's life miserable, Nathaniel became the first teacher to get Akumatized, Adrien was encouraged to enter a m|m relationship, and Marinette discussed the HMC takeover with Tikki.

 

“I can’t do it anymore.” Marinette looked up as a burst of loud middle school chatter flooded her room and Alya walked through her door. Her lunch bag swung wildly as she closed the door behind her and slumped against it. “I can’t handle navigating the halls during the lunch rush again.”

“That bad?” Marinette asked, patting the chair she’d already pulled up to her desk.

“Worse. The sixth graders are getting bolder.” Alya sighed and pushed away from the door, meandering over to the chair.

“Good for them,” Marinette said, smiling to herself as she retrieved her own lunch bag from the drawer she’d stashed it in that morning.

“No, _not_ good for them,” Alya said as she set her lunch bag down on the corner of the desk. She put a hand on her hip and dredged up her best scowl. “Bad for me.”

“You could always just leave your classroom later,” Marinette said with a shrug, opening her bag and taking out food.

“You know I don’t have the patience for that,” Alya said, waving a dismissive hand.

“Then I guess your only other option is to break Hawkmoth’s Let Out Laws and leave class early.” Marinette smiled sweetly as she set down her thermos of soup.

“As appealing as that sounds, I’d rather not get scolded by Mr. Hawkmoth Rep for-”

“‘Failing to maximize student learning time,’” Alya and Marinette said in unison. Alya wordlessly held out a fist and Marinette bumped it.

Alya shook her head in disgust. “If I can avoid talking to that man, I will.”

“I still haven’t had the marvelous opportunity to speak to him personally yet,” Marinette said, unwrapping her sandwich.

“Thank your lucky stars for that one,” Alya said, shaking her head again as she stepped around the desk towards her chair. “That guy gives me the creeps.”

“The creeps?” Marinette asked, a smirk crossing her face, ready and willing to tease her over the choice of words. However, Alya sucked in a sharp breath as she sank down into her seat, a harsh wince quirking her face.

 “Are you okay?” Marinette asked as nonchalantly as she could, trying not to be too obvious as she glanced over. Now that she looked closer, she could see that Alya was looking a little worn out today, her face a little less expressive than normal, her posture a little more drooped.

“I’m fine,” Alya said, giving a halfhearted little wave as she carefully slumped back in her chair. “Pain flare started up last night.”

“Oh no.” Marinette turned towards her, half reaching out even though she knew she couldn’t do anything. “Are you-”

“I’m alright.” Alya gave the little wave again and sat up a little straighter to open her lunch. “Just a little pain, nothing I can’t handle.”

“Did you take your medicine this morning?” Marinette asked. Alya didn’t look at her, continuing to dig through her lunch bag for much longer than necessary. Marinette frowned. “Alya.”

“You know I hate taking it,” Alya said tiredly. She took an apple out of the bag and rolled it in her hands, still not looking up.

“It doesn’t make you weak,” Marinette said, fighting down the exasperation that always welled up when they had this conversation.

“No, it just makes me feel like it,” Alya snapped, finally looking up to half-glare at her.

“Alya-”

“Marinette,” Alya said firmly.

Marinette winced. And then she sighed. “I’m trying to fix you again, aren’t I?”

“Yep.” Alya went back to examining the apple, slowly rolling it back and forth between her palms.

“I’m sorry,” Marinette said, screwing her face up in annoyance with herself, which was also fairly common in these conversations. “Sorry, I just-”

“Hate seeing me like this.” Alya stopped rolling the apple and gave her a gentle smile. “I know. But I’m going to be in pain whether I take the twenty million pills or not, so I might as well just deal with it. I’ve been living with fibromyalgia for thirteen years. I think I can get through one more day.” Alya winked and some of Marinette’s tension bled away.

“Okay,” she said, doing her best to believe it. “I’m still sorry.”

“Good.” Alya grinned as she slowly sat forward and put the apple on the desk.

“Ice cream therapy later?” Marinette asked, turning back towards her own lunch.

“Hell yeah,” Alya said, grinning even wider. It dimmed a little and she sighed. “But not today. I have to grade.”

“So do I.” Marinette groaned and paused the unwrapping of her sandwich to plunk her head down on the desk. She turned to the side and smiled hopefully at Alya. “We can do it together?”

Alya laughed, her face brightening for a moment. “Have either of us ever successfully gotten work done when we’re in the same room?”

“No. Point taken,” Marinette said. She sighed and sat up, returning to her sandwich. “Ice cream therapy another day then.”

“You got it.” Alya nodded firmly and reached into her bag to pull out a tub of pasta.

Then the classroom door burst open and the muted buzz of speech flooded the room again as Tikki ran inside, her lunch tray precariously balanced on one hand as she hurriedly closed the door behind her (not quite a slam, but close enough to make eyebrows rise) and swung around to face Marinette and Alya.

“Have you heard?” she demanded, her free hand fisted on her hip and her feet planted wide as she waited for a response. Marinette and Alya exchanged a look.

“So, they put up the announcements about the uniforms then?” Marinette asked as she looked back at Tikki.

“Yes!” she burst out, her fist leaving her hip to wave wildly and her lunch tray wobbling dangerously. “It’s so dumb. Why would they start uniforms halfway through a semester?”

“Why would someone sell a school halfway through a semester?” Alya muttered, stabbing her fork into her pasta.

“We all said the same thing this morning when Myl- when Miss Hapréle and Mrs. Couffaine told us that they got Akumatized,” Marinette said, fiddling with a piece of lettuce that had fallen out of her sandwich.

“Choir Couffaine or Theater Tech Couffaine?” Tikki asked, pausing in her righteous indignation for a moment.

“Techie Couffaine,” Alya said. “She and Miss Hapréle are in charge of enforcing the new dress requirements.”

“Why would the theater department be in charge of that?” Tikki asked in bewilderment.

“Who knows?” Alya asked, rolling her eyes.

“At least you guys have a couple weeks to get the uniforms together,” Marinette said gently, taking a bite of her sandwich.

“I’m going to have to dye my hair,” Tikki said darkly.

Marinette winced. “Oh right. No unnatural colors.”

“Ten bucks says Mr. Villain tries to say my hair is unnatural,” Alya said, viciously jabbing at her pasta again.

Marinette sighed and shot her a look. “Mr. Vide’s not a villain, Alya. He’s just trying to do his job.”

“I know, but he’s still creepy.” Alya stuffed penne in her mouth and chewed vindictively.

The bell rang then, catching Marinette off guard as it always did, but throwing her off much more now that the music had been changed to a more stereotypical and more jarring ringing noise as per Hawkmoth’s instructions. She waited until it stopped ringing, glaring at the speaker in her ceiling the entire time it blared, then waited until the ringing in her ears stopped as well. Then she turned to Alya, mouth open to say something.

And that was when the door burst open a third time and Penelope and Lucas hurried in, both slightly out of breath and carrying lunch trays of their own.

“How- how do you always get here so fast?” Penelope breathed, looking at Tikki in awe as Lucas closed the door behind them, closing off the sound once more. It was much quieter now that the bell had rung and students scrambled to either get to class or find places to eat lunch or maybe just hide, but above all not get caught in the hall.

“I keep telling you guys, I’m fast,” Tikki said smugly, following Penelope and Lucas as they walked towards a table and set down their trays.

“Yeah, we know that. You run _every_ where,” Lucas said, shaking his head as he sat down. Then he tilted his head at her. “But how do you get past Timebreaker?”

“Timebreaker?” Marinette asked, looking over at Alya. She shrugged, just as confused.

“Yeah, Timebreaker,” Penelope said cheerfully, as if this should be completely obvious. Her eyebrows furrowed when Marinette and Alya continued to stare at her in confusion. “Miss Kubdel?”

“Why are you calling Miss Kubdel Timebreaker?” Alya asked, pausing her assault on her pasta to stare at the students.

“Ever since she got put in charge of the Let Out Laws, she’s been busting everyone for being out in the halls before or after class is supposed to be ‘in session,’” Tikki said, rolling her eyes and pulling out the air quotes for maximum disdain. “So everybody just sort of started calling her Timebreaker.”

“Nobody really knows who started it,” Lucas said with a shrug, poking at the brick of lasagna on his tray.

“ _I_ know,” Tikki muttered, shaking her head in what looked like exasperation.

“Really?” Penelope asked, looking at Tikki with wide eyes. “Who?”

“Have you guys not heard about the Akuma names?” Tikki asked, pointing her fork at Marinette and Alya.

“Names _plural_?” Alya asked, blinking at her. “Do _all_ of the Akumatized teachers have nicknames?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tikki said. Alya and Marinette exchanged another look. Tikki glanced between the two of them, then put down her fork and started counting on her fingers. “Mr. Kurtzberg is Evillustrator, because he’s policing the stuff that’s posted on the walls and he’s making all of those little comics that are supposed to be relatable, but aren’t. You already know Miss Kubdel is Timebreaker. Mr. Bruel is Stoneheart, because- actually I don’t know where that one came from.” Tikki looked at Lucas and Penelope, but they both just shrugged. “And then I guess Mrs. Couffaine and Miss Hapréle will get names soon.”

“Mrs. Couffaine and Miss Hapréle?” Lucas asked, tilting his head at Tikki.

“They’re going to be in charge of the new uniform ‘injunctives,’” she said, her face darkening again.

“Choir Couffaine or Techie Couffaine?” Penelope asked.

“Techie,” Tikki said, still brooding. She stretched a piece of hair from her bushy ponytail around to her face so that she could stare at it mournfully. “I’ll miss you, red.”

“I think you missed a couple teachers,” Lucas said, his eyebrows furrowed for different reasons.

“I’ve never had the others for any classes, so I didn’t pay as much attention to them,” Tikki said, waving her hand distractedly as she continued to mourn her hair.

“Wow.” Marinette gestured at the students with her half-eaten sandwich. “No mercy from you guys, huh?”

“Oh, we don’t believe they’re evil,” Penelope said quickly, looking alarmed as she glanced up at her. She waved her free hand frantically as jello jiggled on her spoon. “It’s just- we just-” Penelope sighed, looking down at her tray sadly. “Miss Kubdel has gotten me so many times.”

“It’s okay, Penelope,” Marinette said gently. Tikki reached over and patted her shoulder until she looked up and smiled tentatively. “We understand the deal with nicknames.”

“And we think it sucks that they have to do these things too,” Alya said ever so helpfully.

Marinette sighed. “Alya, we should probably at least _pretend_ to be professional and not choose sides here.”

Alya shrugged. “When have we ever cared about that before?”

Marinette opened her mouth to respond, but Alya had a point, so she just sighed again and turned her attention to her soup.

“Speaking of the uniform edict-” Tikki said, immediately perking up and allowing her hair to spring back into place.

“We weren’t speaking of the uniform edict anymore,” Lucas pointed out, stabbing a straw into his juice box.

“What’s an edict?” Penelope asked.

“It’s a synonym of injunctive,” Alya said, gesturing with her fork. “An official order or command.”

“Nice one, Miss English Teacher,” Marinette said, putting down her spoon to hold a fist out to Alya.

“Why thank you, Miss Art Teacher,” she said primly as she granted the fist bump. Then she sniffed. “Edict is a much better word for the situation than injunctive anyways. Who uses _injunctive_?”

“Why don’t they just say order?” Penelope asked, wrinkling her nose, though whether it was because of the unnecessarily complicated word or because of smell of the sketchy looking pizza she was eyeing was hard to tell.

“Speaking of the uniform order,” Tikki said loudly, “the petition should be done by the end of the day.”

“Really?” Lucas asked, looking surprised and perhaps a little impressed as he swirled the straw around in his juice. “That was fast.”

“It’s circulating the cafeteria right now,” Tikki said smugly. “When the fifth period lunch starts, I’ll start it around again.”

 “Won’t that make you late to class?” Penelope asked, eyes wide.

“I can get past Timebreaker,” Tikki said, waving a hand dismissively. “Besides, Trixie and a friend of mine are gonna look after it for me.”

“Wait, what’s this about a petition?” Marinette cut in, raising an eyebrow.

“How are we so behind the times?” Alya asked. She turned to Marinette, putting on her most distressed face. “Marinette, is it official? Are we old now?”

“We’re not even thirty yet,” Marinette said flatly.

“Yeah, and we can’t keep up with the hip young whippersnappers, we’re _old_.” Alya sighed dramatically, going to lean into Marinette’s space in despair. She winced and straightened back up slowly. “Yep. Definitely old.”

“We’re not old, Alya,” Marinette said, half stern, half concerned. Alya waved her off and she turned back to Tikki. “What’s this petition you’re talking about?”

“They took away our bells, they shortened our passing periods, they’re making our teachers police us, but the uniforms are the final straw,” Tikki said emphatically, sitting forward in her seat and leaning her elbows against the table. “So, I started a petition against it that is being signed by the whole school as we speak.” She held a fist out and Lucas and Penelope both gave her bumps.

“So _that’s_ what you were doing in my class this morning instead of paying attention.” Alya stabbed her fork in Tikki’s direction.

“Yup,” Tikki said cheerfully, picking up a cookie and pointing it in return. “Starting a revolution.”

“Did you type the document up?” Alya asked, watching Tikki thoughtfully. “They’ll be more likely to listen to it that way.”

“Of course,” Tikki said with a grin. “I’ve got a friend who has Computer second period.”

“Your name isn’t on it, right?” Marinette asked, something anxious and heavy sinking in her stomach.

Alya elbowed her in the side. “Don’t discourage her right to free speech.”

“I’m not,” Marinette protested, elbowing her back gently. “I’m encouraging her to be safe. She could get suspended for this.”

“I don’t care if I get suspended,” Tikki said with a shrug. “Someone has to do something.”

“It doesn’t have to be you, Tikki.” Marinette frowned at her, unease swirling where it had taken up residence in her midsection.

“Who else is gonna do it?” Tikki shrugged. “My name isn’t on it, Miss DC, I’ll be fine.” Marinette just frowned again.

“She’ll be careful,” Alya said, laying a hand on Marinette’s arm. She turned to raise an eyebrow at Tikki. “Won’t you?”

“Scout’s honor,” Tikki said, grinning as she held up her left hand.

“Isn’t scout’s honor with your right hand?” Penelope asked tentatively, looking between Tikki and everyone else in the room.

“You’ve never been a girl scout, Tikki,” Lucas pointed out, shoveling some lasagna into his mouth.

“You catch my drift,” Tikki said, waving her raised hand.

“Bring the petition by my room on your free period, Tikki,” Alya said, pointing with her fork again. “I’ll sign it.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Césaire,” Tikki said, grin widening.

“I’ll sign it too, I guess,” Marinette said with a long-suffering sigh.

“You’re the best, Miss DC,” Tikki said, beaming at her. Marinette shook her head, but she couldn’t help but smile back.

“What about me?” Alya asked, doing her best to look extraordinarily hurt.

“You’re alright,” Tikki said coolly, shrugging a shoulder as she picked up her abandoned cookie and trying to hide her smile.

“I see how it is. _You_ like me, right Penelope?” Alya asked, turning puppy dog eyes on Penelope, who immediately turned pink.

“I, um. I-” She looked back and forth between Marinette and Alya, her eyes wide. She turned to Tikki for help, but she was giggling too hard to be helpful and when she turned to Lucas, he was smiling and focusing quite hard on his lasagna. “I- You’re really great and all, Mrs. Césaire, I mean, _both_ of you are really great, I-”

“Penelope, I was just messing with you,” Alya laughed, waving away the problem. “It’s okay. I know you like both of us.”

“I do,” Penelope said with relief, her shoulders hunching up near her ears.

“Miss DC is definitely the best though,” Lucas said, grinning suddenly.

“Et tu, Lucas?” Alya asked mournfully.

“Woah, he’s actually smiling,” Tikki exclaimed, staring at Lucas in wonder.

“I smile all the time,” Lucas said, his grin immediately dissolving into a frown.

“She meant you’re smiling at something that isn’t Amelie,” Penelope piped up, somehow looking nervous and sly at the same time. Lucas frowned even deeper, a hint of a blush creeping into his cheeks.

“Ooh, nice one, Penelope.” Tikki stuck her cookie between her teeth and offered her a high five. Penelope took it and bounced in her seat, looking rather pleased with herself.

“Yeah, that _was_ pretty good,” Lucas said, a smirk quirking his lips. Penelope looked over at him in alarm. “Great job, H-”

Penelope dived forward and slapped a hand over Lucas’s mouth before he could get out more than a sound. She stayed frozen there for a second before she scrambled back into her seat, her cheeks turning a deeper red. “I’m so sorry, Lucas. I didn’t- I’m really sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Lucas said, looking a little sheepish as he re-adjusted his shirt. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Neither should I,” Penelope said quickly.

“…What was that?” Tikki asked, for once staring at Lucas and Penelope with the same amount of bewilderment as Marinette and Alya.

“Nothing,” Penelope squeaked, shoving pizza in her mouth. Tikki exchanged a glance with Marinette, her eyebrows raised.

“Hey, did you ever tell Miss DC about the sewing club you wanted to start?” Lucas asked, tilting his head at Tikki. She kept her eyebrows raised, but after glancing at Penelope, who was turning redder by the second and still using pizza as a gag, she sighed and relented.

“Yeah, I told her a couple weeks ago,” Tikki said. She turned to Marinette. “Did anything ever happen with that?”

“Ah. Right. The sewing club.” Marinette devoted her focus to perfectly stirring her soup. It was a tricky business what with all the… liquid.

“You forgot to ask, didn’t you?” Tikki asked, completely unsurprised.

“She forgot,” Lucas said.

“Kinda seems like she forgot,” Penelope agreed gently.

“Totally forgot,” Alya said, shaking her head as she ate a bite of pasta.

“It’s possible that I forgot,” Marinette said, holding her thermos of soup up as protection.

“When did you ask about a sewing club?” Alya asked, pointing at Tikki with her fork.

“Three whole weeks ago.” Tikki took a bite of her cookie and shook her head in solemn disapproval.

“In the forgetful Miss DC’s defense, that was when Hawkmoth swooped in,” Alya said, setting her mostly empty container of pasta on the desk and sitting back in her seat. “So, you should probably cut her some slack.”

“Thank you,” Marinette said, nodding graciously at Alya and taking a sip of her soup.

“No problem. You can be mad at her for forgetting another time.”

Marinette sighed. “I’ll go ask Principal Fu as soon as I can.”

“If you don’t have time, that’s okay,” Tikki said, waving her cookie. “The club can wait.”

“No, I have the time.” Marinette shook her head quickly, already adding it to her mental agenda and hoping she’d actually remember to take care of it. “There’s even less of a chance of it getting approved with all of the funding issues, but I’ll see if I can figure something out with Principal Fu.”

“Thanks, Miss DC!” Penelope beamed at her, her blush almost fully faded and her pizza gone.

“You’re welcome,” Marinette said, smiling back at her. “Now, I think we all want an update on what truly matters here.” She put her soup down and turned a sly smile on Lucas. “How’s it going with Amelie?”

Lucas groaned and everyone else laughed and the rest of lunch proceeded as normal, almost as if nothing had changed.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

The bell marking the start of seventh period had just finished ringing when Marinette walked into the front office. It was a nice space, with comfortable chairs and warm walls and student projects hanging behind the front desk. Also behind the desk was one of the teenaged workers that came from the high school nearby for internship credits, who smiled and waved as the door closed behind Marinette. She was glad that this space had remained free of any purple butterflies so far. She wondered how long it would be before it changed as well.

“Hey, Wayzz,” Marinette said as she stepped up to the front desk, folding her arms on the tall edge. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his hair and she grinned. “Gone swimming recently?”

“Yeah,” Wayzz said sheepishly, brushing his green-tinted hair back from his face. “They replaced the filter in the pool at my school and it introduced a lot of copper to the water. A bunch of us ended up with green hair.” He sighed, self-consciously touching his hair again.

“Well, you better get that taken care of or you’ll be out of dress code,” Marinette said, doing her best to not outright laugh at him. Then she stopped and tilted her head at him. “Are you going to have to adhere to the new uniform policy? I know the teachers are going to have a stricter dress code, but-”

“Yes,” Wayzz said flatly, his embarrassed half smile slipping away into a massively unimpressed grimace. “I have to get a uniform.”

“That sucks,” Marinette said, smiling sympathetically.

“Yeah, it does.” Wayzz sighed again, then straightened up and gave his best helpful smile. “Anyways, what can I do for you?”

 “I was hoping to talk to Principal Fu. Is he in?” Marinette asked, eyeing the candy bowl that rested on the edge of the desk.

“He is,” Wayzz said. Marinette looked up at the edge in his voice. He was hesitating, his mouth half opened like he wanted to say something, his face conflicted. He shut his mouth the next moment and shook his head slightly. “You can go on in and talk to him if you want.”

“Okay,” Marinette said slowly.

Wayzz sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Principal Fu’s door. “He’s just not alone.”

“If he’s in a meeting, I can come back when he’s by himself,” Marinette said, already taking a step away from the desk and trying to think of another time she could drop by.

“He won’t be left alone any time soon,” Wayzz said, that weird edge in his voice again and his brows furrowing.

“Um. Okay,” Marinette said again, raising an eyebrow.

“Go on in, Miss DC,” Wayzz said, bringing his friendly smile back with a bit of effort. “Principal Fu will be able to speak with you.”

“Alright. Thanks.” Marinette hesitantly smiled back at him and stepped through the little swinging doors that separated the sitting area from the administrative area. She ignored the unease that followed her through.

She knocked on Principal Fu’s door and opened it when he said to come in and immediately understood Wayzz’s hesitation.

“Hello, Marinette,” Principal Fu said, seated at his desk with an easy smile on his face and his hands folded in front of him. The smile was normal for him, but it seemed a little out of place with Mr. Vide standing just behind him, dressed in drab gray suit and watching Marinette enter the room with a cold detachment. “How are you today?”

“I’m okay,” Marinette said slowly, closing the door behind her, but not moving farther into the office. “How are you?”

“I believe I’m okay as well,” Principal Fu said, smiling at Marinette like they were in on the same private joke. “Would you like to sit down?” He gestured towards one of the squishy armchairs that were stationed in front of his desk, armchairs that Marinette had gladly sat in plenty of times. Now, however, she hesitated to step forward. She felt that she should stay at a distance, standing straight, muscles taught, expressions shuttered. It took her a moment to realize that she was having a fight or flight response, but it took her no time at all to recognize the source.

 _That guy gives me the creeps_.

Marinette realized she had been silent too long, staring too hard, and forced herself to step forward and take a seat. However, she couldn’t relax into the comfort of the armchair like she normally did. She sat on the edge and tried to tell herself that he was just doing his job, he wasn’t evil, he was just like the rest of them, forced to do Hawkmoth’s bidding…

Except the rest of them weren’t quite so reminiscent of a shark.

“What can I help you with, Marinette?” Principal Fu asked kindly, that easy smile still fixed on his face and looking entirely too sympathetic when she quickly tore her eyes away from Mr. Vide.

“A sewing club,” Marinette blurted. She held in her wince. She was a grown woman and there was _no reason_ a man should freak her out this much. “Some of my students have expressed interest in forming a sewing club.” She was glad that she sounded at least marginally more professional. “They wanted to have extra time to work on projects and be able to offer sewing to kids that can’t fit any of my classes into their schedules. I would be willing to sponsor the club, of course, and-”

“What is your name?” Marinette blinked and looked up at Mr. Vide, who didn’t appear to have moved or changed in the slightest, but who had definitely spoken. That dry, flat voice couldn’t have belonged to anyone else in the room.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said. She fought the urge to add ‘sir’ at the end.

“You are in the arts department, Miss Dupain-Cheng,” Mr. Vide said.

“Yes,” Marinette said slowly.

“The school is not introducing any new extracurricular activities at this time, Miss Dupain-Cheng.” Mr. Vide watched her, gaze never flickering, never lessening, never even blinking as far she could tell.

_Just doing his job._

“I know there’s not much room in the budget,” Marinette said, her eyebrows furrowing, “but I’m willing to work the extra time without pay and provide the materials out of pocket if I need to. If you’ll just approve it-”

“The school is not introducing any new extracurricular activities at this time, Miss Dupain-Cheng,” Mr. Vide repeated.

Marinette wondered if something could count as cold if there was no feeling at all.

She glanced at Principal Fu, hoping for some kind of backup, sympathy, anything. He was still smiling, but the expression had gone stiff and stale and his hands were clenched so hard the tips of his fingers were turning white.

_I have a feeling things are out of his hands._

“Mr. Vide,” Marinette said hesitantly, searching for something to say that would allow her to go back to her classroom and Tikki, who was surely there by now, with some kind of good news.

Then there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Principal Fu called, his fingers and his smile relaxing just slightly as he shifted his attention to the door. It opened and Wayzz poked his head inside. His eyes went to Mr. Vide first before he firmly turned his attention to Principal Fu.

“A student just brought a petition for you,” Wayzz said, half of his body still outside the room. Something dropped in Marinette’s stomach.

“A petition?” Principal Fu asked, raising one eyebrow slightly. Wayzz nodded. His eyes flickered to Mr. Vide once more and then he reluctant opened the door a little farther to show a thick stack of papers, curling at the edges from the handling of many careless fingers and the imprints of many pens. The first page was typed and professional looking, listing the grievance and the reasoning.

Mr. Vide held his hand out.

Wayzz’s face hardened as he looked at him. He looked back at Principal Fu, who nodded slightly. He still hesitated for a moment, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder, some sort of emotion flashing across his face. Then he let out a quiet sigh and slipped inside the room carefully, shutting the door behind him quickly.

Mr. Vide watched him, his hand still stretched out.

Wayzz crossed the room quickly and leaned across the desk to place the petition in his hand. He moved away just as fast.

“Mr. Magie.”

Wayzz froze with his hand on the doorknob, reluctantly turning back to look at Mr. Vide. “Yes, sir?”

“Who delivered this to you, Mr. Magie?” Mr. Vide asked. The first page, the one with the request, was flipped to the back. He was scanning down the list of names.

Wayzz looked at Marinette and whatever had dropped into her stomach turned sharp and painful.

It was Tikki. It had to be.

Wayzz looked at Principal Fu for a long moment before looking back up at Mr. Vide, who was still scanning names. “I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know, Mr. Magie?” Mr. Vide paused, glancing up at Wayzz.

“The kid just dropped it off,” Wayzz said calmly, his face blank. “I don’t know them.”

Mr. Vide considered him, unmoving, unblinking, expressionless.

“In the future, Mr. Magie, please endeavor to get the names of individuals seeking to make demands.” He looked back down at the list of names. As soon as his eyes were focused on the paper, Wayzz reflexively glanced over his shoulder at the door.

Tikki was still out there. She had to be. She was proud and confident and cheerful and she was standing outside waiting to talk to Principal Fu about her petition.

“You may go, Mr. Magie.” Wayzz jolted slightly, whipping back around to face Mr. Vide. He showed no indication that he noticed the furtive fumble, just scanning down the list, down each column, left to right to left to right. Wayzz glanced at Principal Fu once more, then at Marinette for a long second, then slipped out of the room, not opening the door any more than he had to.

Mr. Vide continued to read.

Marinette stared at the petition, clutched in his hands. There was a little stain on the back where it had landed in somebody’s food, probably during either fourth or fifth period lunch as it had been passed around, hand to hand, by hopeful kids. She wondered if Alya’s signature was somewhere in there, tucked into one of the columns Mr. Vide was scanning.

Principal Fu was watching as well. His smile was gone now and his face was blank as he watched Mr. Vide turn a page and start down the next column. He looked over at Marinette and they just stared at one another for a second. She recognized the unease that lay behind that blank face. She felt it herself.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng.” Marinette managed to not jump at the sound of her name, but just barely.

“Yes?” she asked carefully.

“Was there something else you needed, Miss Dupain-Cheng?” Mr. Vide reached the last line and flipped the petition closed, still not looking at the front page.

“Uh, no.”

 _Sir_.

Mr. Vide moved for the first time, stepping around the desk with measured movements that just made Marinette think of a shark even more. He reached out his hand and she felt an urge to flinch.

“Then you should get back to work.”

Mr. Vide dropped the petition into the trashcan next to Principal Fu’s desk.

He moved back around the desk, resuming his place just behind Principal Fu, a shark circling, sniffing for blood.

Marinette stared at the petition, ruffled pages bending awkwardly against the sides of the trashcan. She looked back up at Principal Fu. His face was still blank and his fingers were clenched tight.

“I guess I should,” Marinette said, standing quickly. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later, Will- Principal Fu.”

“Have a nice day, Marinette,” Principal Fu said evenly, his smile returning slowly, though it looked almost sad now.

Marinette left quickly and didn’t look back until she’d shut the door behind her.

“Is everything okay?” Wayzz asked. Marinette looked at him, his worried face and his minty green hair.

“It’s fine,” she managed, quickly walking past him and past the swinging doors.

“The petition…”

Marinette paused at the door to the office and glanced back at him. He looked young standing there, a reluctant kind of hope on his face.

“He threw it away,” she said, then opened the door and was gone.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

“Hey, Miss DC. Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for ages. Oh, guess what? I turned in the petition. Wayzz wouldn’t let me go in to talk to Principal Fu for some reason, but he delivered it. Hopefully something will happen soon. Hopefully… Anyways, I’m ready to grade. Gotta work for my freedom, right?”

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

  _Someone has to do something_.

Marinette wrote a grade at the top of the essay and put it with the other finished ones. She sighed and reached for her glass of wine, taking a long sip in the hopes that it’d magically make the finished pile bigger and the ungraded pile smaller. Unfortunately, when Marinette put the glass down, the piles were still there and the ungraded pile was still significantly bigger.

Marinette put her wine glass down and adjusted her seat on her couch. Her little apartment wasn’t amazing, but it was cozy rather than cramped, not too loud or suffocatingly quiet, and it could be either warm or cold when she wanted it to be, so it was the best she could ask for on a teacher’s salary. She actually liked it for the most part, with her comfortable couch for late night grading (or maybe even Netflix if she ever got the chance) and colorful paintings on the walls. Some of them were gifts from students, some from friends, but they all helped the apartment feel like home. Like safety. Like everything would be okay.

And yet.

Marinette couldn’t seem to kick the churning in her stomach, even with the comfy couch and art on the walls and her comfy sweater and a pile of essays.

 _Someone has to do something_.

Marinette shook her head quickly and reached for the next essay. She couldn’t think about that. That way lay madness. That way lay-

Marinette read the words at the top of the paper. Then she groaned.

 _The Power of Art by Tikki Mirac_.

Marinette took another sip of wine and briefly considered exiling Tikki’s essay to the bottom of the pile until she could look at it without hearing words playing in her head. But then she noticed a little note written in pink pen at the bottom of the first page.

 _Good luck with the grading, Miss DC! You can do it_ _!_ ♡♡♡

Marinette sighed again. And then she gave up. She put aside the grading pen and the essay and the wine glass. She pushed herself up off of the couch and paced as well as she could in her tiny studio apartment. Around the coffee table, through the kitchen, over the bed, past the sofa, around the coffee table, again and again.

 _Someone has to do something_.

Tikki was right. _Of course_ , Tikki was right. The way things were going did not seem good at all, with funding slowly draining out of the arts department and rules getting stricter and students planning protests, protests that got completely disregarded. Something had to change before the school as they knew it and loved it was completely paved over for whatever vision Hawkmoth was building. Something had to change.

But how?

Petitions could be thrown away and complainers could be punished. Marinette shuddered to think about what would have happened if Tikki had been identified as the source of the document. She shuddered about a lot of other things too, but the way Mr. Vide had looked at Wayzz…

Marinette hugged her ribs and paced. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, living room, kitchen, bedroom, living-

 _Someone has to do something_.

Marinette stopped abruptly. Then she shook her head.

“Why am I even _thinking_ about this?” she muttered to herself. She stomped over to her couch and flopped down, picking up Tikki’s essay and glaring at it. “You’re just a teenager, Tikki, why am I even listening to you?”

The essay looked back at her. Silent.

 _Someone has to do something_.

“Great, now I’m talking to inanimate objects,” Marinette muttered. “I really am going crazy.” She tossed the essay off to the side and listened to the flutter of the paper as it floated to whatever surface it chose. It didn’t sound like the petition as it hit the trashcan. That had been more like a dull thump, a finality, a condemnation. Fluttering wasn’t final. Fluttering was a possibility, a little creature fighting to survive, a risk of life and limbs.

Butterflies fluttered. And butterflies were Hawkmoth’s _thing_ , so maybe Marinette should leave the metaphors to Alya and lay off the wine.

But…

 _Someone has to do something_.

Marinette slumped sideways on the couch, pulling her legs up and turning to stare at the ceiling.

_Someone has to do something._

She groaned, kicking her legs at the arm of the couch.

_Someone has to do something._

She wondered where Tikki’s essay had fallen. She wondered a lot of things…

 _Someone has to do something_.

She dug around until she found her phone and sent a text to Alya: _I think I’m going to do something stupid._

Because it _was_ stupid. If someone found out, Marinette could risk her job, maybe her whole career, maybe even her pristine criminal record. It wasn’t just stupid, it was _dangerous_ …

 _Someone has to do something_.

But that didn’t matter, did it?

_Someone has to do something._

Marinette slowly sat up and looked down at where Tikki’s essay sat on the carpet, the pages twisted gracefully so that even though most of it was facedown, she could still see the title and the pink pen grinning up at her cheerfully.

She jumped when her phone buzzed and when she looked at the text, the motion was distracted at best: _Please tell me this stupid thing is asking Adrien out. Because it’s not stupid and you should do it. Unless you’re planning on using a pun. Then it’s stupid._

Her thumbs hovered over keys. She looked at the essay, wondering, wondering, wondering.

It would take something huge, it would take something insane, it would take something…

Miraculous.

But someone had to do something.

She tossed her phone away and picked up Tikki’s essay, reading the note over again.

Damn...

 

Marinette was going to do something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Enter Ladybug.


	4. Finish Homework

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette figures out what she's going to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Time: Tikki circulated a petition, but when it got delivered to ~~Master~~ Principal Fu, the despicable and shark-like Mr. Vide threw it out without reading anything other than the names of everyone that signed it. Marinette decided that she needed to do something about all of the changes going down.

“Finally!” Alya said as Marinette shuffled into the teacher’s lounge, basket of pastries in one hand, giant, espresso-ridden coffee in the other, and bags under her eyes. “You’re a full forty minutes late. If Juleka were here she might actually dance.” Marinette dropped the basket of pastries in the center of the table and looked around. Sure enough, half of the table was empty, only Alya, Nino, and Adrien sitting in their usual spots.

“Where is everyone?” Marinette asked, frowning at the empty seats as she collapsed into her own.

“Nath, Juleka, and Myléne are all working on Akuma stuff while they’ve got the time,” Adrien said, staring forlornly at the spots. “And Rose is providing emotional support.”

“Sounds like Rose,” Marinette said weakly, attempting for a smile, but lacking the energy to muster up anything close to false happiness. She reached for the basket and took the cinnamon roll from the top, carefully wrapping it in one of the napkins tucked into the side. “I’ll save this for Juleka.”

“Aw, man. I was hoping I could snipe it,” Nino pouted, leaning forward to take a croissant instead.

“You get Akumatized and then we’ll talk,” Marinette said flatly. She dug Alya’s banana bread out of her bag and plopped it into her waiting palm.

“Oh, cool, then it’s only a matter of time,” Nino said cheerfully, taking a vicious bite out of his croissant.

“That’s positive,” Adrien muttered as he poked through the pastries. He eventually selected his usual cheese Danish.

“C’mon man, you know that more arts and humanities teachers have been Akumatized than anyone else.” Nino glared at his croissant and Adrien shifted uncomfortably, staring down at his Danish. “And I’m sure in the end, all of us will be forced onto the system. One way or the other, it’s only a matter of time.”

They were all silent for a moment, each pair of eyes sliding to the empty seats.

“So, Mari,” Alya said loudly, deliberately turning away from the empty chairs. Marinette was more than happy to follow her lead. She’d spent all night thinking about the problems with their school, she didn’t need to think about it more. “What was up with that text last night?”

Ah.

As usual, Marinette had miscalculated.

“When you didn’t answer, I started to get a little worried,” Alya continued, popping a piece of banana bread in her mouth. She chewed it as she glanced over Marinette, an eyebrow rising. “And girl, no offense, but you kind of look like crap.”

Marinette was well aware that she looked like crap. She had woken up that morning, taken one look in the mirror, and given up on being put together that day. The bags under her eyes were roughly the size and shape of California and it wasn’t hard to figure out why when she had been up all night contemplating her decision to start a freaking revolution. And also finishing the grading of the fifteen essays she’d forgotten in the process.

Which created a dilemma.

Because now Alya wanted to know why. And she wanted to know why Marinette had sent her a text saying that she was thinking about doing something stupid. And all three of Marinette’s friends were sitting there staring at her, waiting for her to answer. And Marinette wasn’t quite sure when she had decided this, possibly sometime between texting Alya and three AM, but she couldn’t tell them the truth.

It was a completely bad-superhero-movie decision, but she couldn’t drag her friends into her stupid crusade. Because she knew that they would help her. Of course they would, they were also upset and worried and itching to do something and they were the most supportive people on the planet. But if Marinette was going to do this- whatever the hell _this_ was- she was not going to allow anyone else to risk themselves.

“I had a bottle of wine with my grading,” Marinette said. She was surprised when the sentence came out, mostly because it came out in the right order and in a semi-believable manner. She let out a little chuckle and forced down the ball of guilt forming in her throat. “I knew it was stupid and it made grading twenty essays take about ten times longer, but I don’t think I could have gotten through it otherwise. I was up almost all night”

Alya watched Marinette closely, her eyes darting back forth as she searched her face. Then she smiled, elbowing Marinette’s arm lightly. “Girl, we’ve all done it. I’m sure on a scale of stupid decisions, that’s pretty light.”

“I had to completely regrade the whole seventh grade’s science tests one time,” Adrien said, shaking his head slowly, “because _someone_ convinced me that it was a good idea to do them while drinking margaritas.” He shot a half glare at Nino.

“How was I to know that you were such a lightweight?” Nino raised his hands in what was probably supposed to be a gesture of innocence, but he was grinning too widely for that to work very well. “I’d never seen you drink before.”

“Exactly. I don’t drink very often.” Adrien pointed the remaining half of his Danish at Nino. “Doesn’t exactly lead to a very high alcohol tolerance.”

“So, you guys got drunk on margaritas over your grading like a bunch of girls?” Alya raised her eyebrow at the two of them as a smile twitched at the corners of her lips.

“No, we got drunk on margaritas over our grading like men,” Nino said, throwing an arm around Adrien and pulling him close. Adrien looked past Nino and rolled his eyes at Marinette. She, despite her exhaustion and anxiety, managed to turn red and giggle like this was the first time he’d ever looked at her.

“Why do they have to drink like any sort of gender?” Marinette asked, looking away from Adrien’s grin for her own safety.

“Good point, my friend,” Alya said, leaning sideways to throw her arm around Marinette’s shoulders in a mirror of Adrien and Nino. She managed it, but Marinette heard the sharp intake of breath that generally accompanied Alya’s pain.

“You good?” Marinette asked quietly.

“Yep,” Alya said cheerfully, settling against Marinette’s side so that Marinette was holding her weight rather than the other way around. “Just second day, you know? Always worse.” Marinette restrained her impulse to protect and fix- Alya would say coddle- and instead settled for wrapping her arm around Alya’s waist and giving her a light squeeze. Alya returned the gesture with a small smile.

“Well, these pastries won’t eat themselves,” Adrien said brightly, leaning forward and dragging the basket closer to their side of the table. Alya and Nino both laughed, Nino dutifully grabbing a third item and Alya sticking to her gluten-free.

Marinette didn’t laugh, her eyes catching on four empty chairs of people who normally would have helped them lower the pastry levels in the basket.

She had to do something. She was _going_ to do something.

But what?

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

“As these studies show, test scores go up by six percent when students are in class for the duration of the allotted time,” Mr. Vide said in his usual bland monotone, shining his laser pointer at the large poster being held by the massively unimpressed Vice Principal Mendeleiev. The little red dot circled yet another number that was apparently supposed to mean something, making jagged little circuits in an attempt to make someone pay attention to it.

As far as Marinette could tell, Mr. Vide was the only person in the room paying attention to it.

“Thus, it is crucial that all students be kept in classrooms until the bell signals the end of the period.” He stood at the front of Nino’s classroom, holding what appeared to be part statistics lesson and part reprimand session, dressed in one of his drab, ill-fitting suits and surveying the trapped teachers with that flat gaze of his.

Marinette wondered what he saw when he looked at them. When she glanced around the room, she saw shifting, fidgeting teachers, averted gazes, glazed eyes, agenda printouts fluttering as bored hands messed with them. Principal Fu was watching Mr. Vide with a completely blank face. Alya was practically vibrating next to her and Marinette knew that she’d hurt worse later as a result; she made a mental note to find some time to bring over some ice cream. She could see Juleka and Rose holding a whispered conversation a few rows down. She saw Alix surreptitiously playing on her phone, agenda nowhere in sight. She saw Kim tossing a small paper ball from hand to hand, probably the remains of _his_ agenda. There were a few paper airplanes being folded. If there was a single teacher paying attention in the whole group, Marinette would be surprised.

So, what did Mr. Vide see that made him think that his statistics/reprimands were at all effective as he took up more and more time in each weekly meeting? Did he not notice that he was not only failing to hold everyone’s attention, but actively driving it away? Or did he see all of this and just not care?

“In spite of measures taken to enforce this injunction, I have noticed students in the hallways without clearance both before and after the appropriate let out time.”

What did it mean for the teachers if Hawkmoth’s representative didn’t care about their reactions in the slightest?

“Steps will be taken to improve enforcement measures,” Mr. Vide’s eyes flicked to Alix, “but every teacher must also support the injunctive for it to be effective and produce results.”

Marinette had so many questions, but no way to get them answered. It wasn’t like she could just _ask_ him-

“I have a question, Mr. Vide,” Alya said loudly. Marinette looked up in surprise as Alya abruptly stood from her seat, fists planted on her hips and a look in her eyes that told Marinette that nothing good was about to happen. Mr. Vide looked at her as well, his expression not changed in the slightest as he considered her.

“Now is not the time for questions, Miss…”

“Mrs. Césaire. And you don’t _have_ a section for questions on this agenda, so I thought I’d just ask now.” Alya forged ahead as only Alya could and Marinette winced. The teachers were stirring more than before, every eye in the room looking between Alya, who dared to interrupt, and Mr. Vide, who must suffer the interruption. Principal Fu was smiling slightly in his place off to the side, but Mr. Vide was still a rock, staring Alya down as she continued. “Why is it that all of the funding is being funneled away from mostly arts and humanities subjects?”

The room went still. Marinette was almost afraid to breathe in the silence that followed. Trust Alya to find _the_ touchiest subject to risk bringing up and just dive straight in.

“If you have objections, you can bring them to me and Principal Fu in a one-on-one meeting.” Mr. Vide looked away from Alya as if that would close the conversation, but Marinette knew Alya better than that.

“Are you refusing to answer my question, Mr. Vide?” There was a steel in Alya’s voice that said she had something up her sleeve and Marinette hoped it would be enough to let her get away with this.

“No, Mrs. Césaire.” Mr. Vide moved his gaze back to Alya slowly. “I am simply directing you to ask it at a more appropriate time.”

“I believe this is a _very_ appropriate time, Mr. Vide,” Alya said pleasantly. “After all, doesn’t Hawkmoth Corporation policy state that all employees have the right to have any and all questions or concerns answered on a public forum? And since this school is owned by the Hawkmoth Corporation and I am an employee of this school and you _have_ no public forum on which my questions and concerns can be answered, surely I have the right to have my question answered now?” Alya smiled innocently. Mr. Vide’s eyes narrowed.

“You are very well versed in your policy, Mrs. Césaire.”

“I’m a dedicated employee of the Hawkmoth Corporation, Mr. Vide. I like to know what is expected of me and how I am supposed to succeed.” Alya’s smile widened and it became clear that Mr. Vide was not the only one who could look like a shark. “Why is funding being funneled away from the arts and humanities subjects?”

Mr. Vide was quiet for a moment, watching Alya as she watched him and waited for him to make his move. The rest of them could do nothing but watch as well. “I think you’ll find, Mrs. Césaire, that programs are being targeted for reformation via the Akuma System fairly equally-”

“While I disagree with that statement and would love to discuss that at another time, that wasn’t my question.” Alya’s smile faded and she was all business now, deadly and serious. “I asked about funding. In a quick survey of all of the Akuma letters that have been distributed, only letters delivered to arts and humanities teachers have included decreases in funding. Why?” All eyes turned to Mr. Vide. Marinette imagined that if she was close enough, she’d be able to see his jaw tightening.

“The Hawkmoth Corporation makes decisions on how funding is distributed based on statistical evidence as to which subjects are most beneficial to the students.” Mr. Vide paused. “The evidence says that STEM fields are more likely to increase students’ chances of success later in life.”

“What evidence?” Marinette blurted. Then she tensed as everyone in the room turned to look at _her_. Including Alya, Principal Fu, _Adrien_. Including Mr. Vide. Her instincts told her to run, to flee, to turn from this confrontation that could only end badly.

But she’d been wondering how to do something hadn’t she?

Marinette stood up next to Alya, pretending that she wasn’t shaking just slightly. “It’s just- There are also many studies that say that investing in arts and humanities education can be an incredibly powerful-”

“Art is _not_ powerful, Miss Dupain-Cheng,” Mr. Vide snapped, the farthest he’d deviated from his eerie monotone since he’d first arrived at the school three weeks ago. For a moment, his flat countenance crumpled, his eyebrows furrowing in a frown, his lip curling. For a moment, he was more human than he was shark, a human with opinions and distastes- distaste and disdain for the subjects that Marinette and most of her friends held dear. Then, the moment passed, and Mr. Vide’s face was smooth and unreadable once more. “I believe I have answered your question, Mrs. Césaire.”

“Actually, I-”

“The next item on our agenda is the new uniform policy.” Mr. Vide turned away, his laser pointer painting a jagged circle around the next number on his chart. For a moment, he had the attention of the room as everyone waited to see what would happen next. But Marinette knew it was over. She sank back down into her seat. Alya resisted for a moment, glaring at Mr. Vide with clenched fists. Then she too sat down, absentmindedly rubbing her knees once she settled. With that, the still silence broke and the teachers were back to fidgeting, though this time there was a lot more whispering. Marinette caught glances from Myléne, Juleka and Rose, Nathaniel, and Alix. They all smiled at her; Alix raised a fist. She blushed when Adrien leaned around Nino to grin at them. They were showing their approval. And their sympathy.

“According to studies, instituting a uniform policy can affect the behavior and learning potential of students.”

They hadn’t accomplished anything.

“Students were twelve percent easier to control. They also scored three percent higher on tests.”

And Mr. Vide knew their names.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

“Thank you, everyone. You’re free to go,” Principal Fu said, his sympathetic smile saying that he understood all too well how long the last hour had felt. “Have a nice evening.” The barely suppressed whispering and fidgeting that had persisted for most of the meeting exploded into conversation and the scraping of chairs as everyone stood.

“That was great, you guys.” Marinette looked around to see Ivan grinning at them, the expression just slightly out of place on his naturally stony face.

“Thanks.” Marinette smiled around the persistent ball of worry and indignation growing in the pit of her stomach.

“Didn’t do much,” Alya muttered, still slumped in her seat. Her eyes were fixed on Mr. Vide, who stood off to the side as he had for the last ten minutes of the meeting while he allowed Principal Fu to pretend he still had power. Mr. Vide surveyed the teachers as they talked and moved towards the exit. Normally they all lingered, but for some strange, inexplicable reason that had nothing to do with the shark standing there watching them, everyone was making a beeline for the exit.

“It was still something,” Ivan said with a shrug. He smiled at them one more time, then walked away, making his way down the risers with the rest of their co-workers. Marinette let out a little sigh and turned to Alya, holding out a hand to her. Nino did the same on Alya’s other side. She rolled her eyes at them, but took the hands anyway, letting them haul her up.

“It really was pretty awesome,” Adrien said, one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other adjusting his bag on his shoulder. He frowned, glancing over his shoulder at Mr. Vide. “I can’t believe he snapped at you like that, Marinette.” Marinette felt the blush fighting its way into her cheeks, but she ignored it.

“I can’t believe it either.” She fought the urge to glance at Mr. Vide as well. Instead she turned and made her way to the stairs, looking over her shoulder at Alya. “But when did you find the time to look at all of the Akuma letters? And all of that Hawkmoth policy?”

Alya chuckled and followed. “There’s a lot one can do in a planning period.”

“And in lots of late nights,” Nino said, casting a disapproving glance at Alya.

“Hey, it paid off, didn’t it?” Alya shrugged off Nino’s look, thoroughly unrepentant.

“I _guess_.” Nino rolled his eyes, but put his hands on Alya’s shoulders as they walked down the stairs. Marinette shook her head fondly. She knew if she looked back right now, she could probably catch Adrien’s eye and they’d probably exchange eye rolls over the cuteness and ridiculousness of their best friends. She kept her eyes on the stairs, her thoughts turning over and over and over.

_How?_

“Hey, you guys go on, I think I left something in my classroom,” Marinette said once they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Girl, you’re always forgetting things.” Alya laughed at her, not a hint of suspicion in her eyes. “What was it this time?”

“A few late quizzes I’ve gotta grade.” Marinette turned away, waving over her shoulder as she started to weave through the slower teachers. “See you guys tomorrow!” If they responded, Marinette didn’t hear it, dodging past Kim and Max to get to the open doors. The stream of teachers was heading towards the exit close by that opened right into the parking lot. Marinette turned the opposite direction, heading back into the school.

She needed to think and doing it at home hadn’t helped her at all the night before.

The problem with starting a revolution, in Marinette’s opinion, was knowing where the hell to start.

She walked through the halls in a roundabout journey to her classroom and surveyed the army of light lavender flyers that was beginning to take over the walls. Beginning meaning in this instance that a full-scale invasion was in progress, happy purple papers competing with student work for every available space, each butterfly-stamped announcement carrying some injunction or another.

_All students must be in classrooms while class is in session in order to maximize…_

_All posted materials must be approved by Mr. Kurtzberg and carry the official stamp of approval or else be…_

_Any students found in the halls outside of designated passing periods without sufficient clearance will be…_

And, of course, the latest:

_Starting November 1 st, all students will be required to adhere to a uniform dress code. Please refer to the HMC Education website for…_

The flyers fluttered at the edge of Marinette’s vision as she slowly made her way to her classroom, making it impossible to ignore that Français Dupont Middle School was no longer the place it used to be, just three weeks into the Hawkmoth occupation. She could see what was wrong plain as day, could read what needed to be opposed by just scanning the flyers.

Knowing _how_ to oppose it? Just trying to figure _that_ out was what had put the bags under her eyes.

There was no doubt that something needed to be done, the meeting today had shown that. But it had also shown how hard it was going to be, how big a task it was for one person. If Alya, who was practically a force of nature in and of herself, armed with facts and policies and a “quick” survey, could barely do more than ruffle the feathers of a mere representative, how could Marinette, who wasn’t a force of anything, change what was happening?

There was no doubt that something needed to be done, _but how, but how, but how_?

This was the circular thought process Marinette had been stuck in for the last twenty-four hours or so. And it was the thought process going through her head when she walked into her classroom and found Tikki sitting on a table, her feet swinging.

“Tikki?” Marinette asked, ripped out of her thoughts ( _have to, but how, have to, but how_ ) by the sight of her favorite student and accidental motivator sitting in her classroom long past the end of school.

Tikki looked up and grinned when she saw Marinette. “Hey, Miss DC.”

“Why are you still here?” Marinette asked, looking up at one of the clocks to confirm that school had ended over an hour and a half ago. “Didn’t your grandfather pick you up?”

“He had some work to do.” Tikki shrugged, her feet swinging without a care. “He’ll be here eventually.”

“So, he just _left_ you here?” Marinette frowned at Tikki as she moved to her desk and put her bag down on the surface.

“Nah, I chose to stay. It’s fine, Miss DC.” Tikki grinned and leaned forward conspiratorially, something (probably mischief) glinting in her eyes. “He’s not a bad guardian, I promise.”

“If you say so,” Marinette said slowly, eyeing Tikki carefully. “But that doesn’t explain how or why you got into my classroom.”

Tikki shrugged again. “You left your door unlocked.” Her swinging feet slowed and when she looked at Marinette, her face was a little more serious. “And I wanted to talk to you.” Marinette almost wanted to sigh, because her thoughts were hardly straight enough to help with somebody else’s. However, she suppressed the sound. Tikki rarely looked so serious and Marinette could never turn away a student asking for help.

“What’s up?” Marinette asked instead, moving around her desk so that she could lean against the front of it.

“My petition got thrown out,” Tikki said quietly. “Wayzz told me today.”

“I know, Tikki.” Marinette indulged in that sigh she’d suppressed. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh. It’s okay. I knew it was a risk.” Tikki shrugged it off, leaning her hands on the edge of the table, her feet still swinging. “But I think the risks are worth it. You know?”

Marinette nodded, because she did know. She knew it way too well right now as she weighed risk after risk after risk against the problems swirling in her mind.

“So, what are you going to do?”

Marinette blinked. “What?” she blurted, staring at Tikki, who just continued to watch her calmly.

“What are you going to do?” Tikki repeated.

“Who says I’m going to do anything?” Marinette’s voice was a little too high to be believable.

Tikki just rolled her eyes. “I’ve been your student for three years, Miss DC. You worry about safety, but you’re not gonna let this place go without a fight.”

“I’m as upset about what’s going on as you, Tikki, but I’m not doing anything,” Marinette lied, shaking her head quickly.

“Okay, Miss DC,” Tikki said, using the same tone of voice adults use when talking to kids about Santa. “Whatever you end up doing, I want to help.”

“What? Tikki-” Marinette paused, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, Tikki was still sitting there, watching her. Marinette changed tactics. “Even if I was going to do something- which I’m not-”

“Uh-huh,” Tikki said in her most skeptical voice.

“Which I’m _not_ \- what makes you think I’d let you, one of my _students_ , help me?”

“Because you can’t do it alone. You need help to do whatever you’re going to do without getting in trouble,” Tikki said simply. “And also because I’m a student.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at her. “And how is that supposed to be a reason to drag you into whatever possibly illegal thing I’m hypothetically engaging in?”

Tikki grinned. “I’m a minor. The most they can do is suspend me. I’d probably just get detention. And that’s only if I’m _caught_.” Tikki paused thoughtfully. “In fact, most of the world would probably be in an uproar over my right to free speech being taken away.” She looked back at Marinette, her grin sliding away. “But you- and the other teachers- you could get _fired_.”

Marinette looked at Tikki, her earnest expression, her cute red hair pulled into a bushy ponytail on top of her head again today. She sighed. “I still don’t understand why you think _I’m_ doing something. Mrs. Césaire’s much angrier than I am. She’s the one with all the knowledge. Even if I _was_ thinking about doing something- which I’m not- I wouldn’t even know where to start. Maybe you should go try to get on _her_ vigilante team.”

Tikki giggled, the smile springing back onto her face. “Maybe you’re just my favorite,” she teased. She shrugged then, her feet kicking. “I dunno, Miss DC. I just feel like you’re the one. I want to help you.”

Two clocks ticked away in the silence. The school was probably empty by now, Marinette mused. Everyone had probably gone home already. All of the teachers. All of the _students_. All of them doing normal things like homework and grading, not planning to overthrow a corporation.

“No.” Marinette shook her head firmly. “No, even if something _was_ happening- which it definitely is not- I couldn’t involve a student in something like this. I refuse to be that sort of influence.”

“You’re wouldn’t be _influencing_ me,” Tikki said quickly. “You’re- you’re…keeping me out of trouble.” Marinette didn’t like the sly expression that crossed Tikki’s face, but she snorted anyway.

“How is this in any way, shape, or form keeping you out of trouble?”

“Because if you don’t let me help you,” Tikki said smugly and Marinette knew that she had once again miscalculated, “I’ll just go off and do what I can on my own.”

Well, damn.

“You wouldn’t dare.” Marinette narrowed her eyes at Tikki.

“I would,” Tikki said cheerfully, her legs swinging full force. “You gonna turn me in, Miss DC?”

“That’s low, Tikki,” Marinette said, shaking her head slowly. “This- this is blackmail.”

“Yup.” Tikki looked way too proud of herself.

“Oh my-” Marinette shook her head, pushing off of the desk and agitatedly walking towards the door, arms crossing over her chest. She stared at the little plastic window that separated her classroom from the rest of the school, but kept her and her students visible to watchful eyes. Through it she could see lines of lavender marching down the halls.

She couldn’t do it alone. She had no idea what she was doing and she couldn’t take on all of that lavender alone and she _wouldn’t_ involve her friends. Surely Tikki should fall under that umbrella of non-involvement?

But Tikki would just go rebel on her own. It was no idle threat; she’d already shown such initiative in starting the petition. It was possible that the only way to make sure she did it safely was to make sure she did it with supervision and if Marinette could get some support in the process...

Every nurturing and protective instinct that Marinette possessed pushed against it, refused to accept a _fourteen-year-old_ becoming part of the toxic politics taking hold in this school. Especially doing it in order to support Marinette, when she was the one who was supposed to be supporting Tikki.

But at the same time…

“Fine.” Marinette turned around slowly and had to tamp down on all sorts of things- but mostly a smile- when she caught Tikki’s grin. “You can help me, but you _have_ to promise me that you won’t do _anything_ without asking me first. If you even _breathe_ outside of the rules without asking me first, you are gonna be in worse trouble than suspension.”

“I promise, Miss DC. Not a toe out of line without asking. I won’t let you down.” Tikki nodded her head hard enough that her ponytail shook. Marinette narrowed her eyes at her, but figured that Tikki’s earnest face was as good as it was going to get. She was a pretty honest kid. It could be worse. She could be involving some _other_ student in organized rebellion against the administration.

_God._

“I wasn’t kidding before, Tikki.” Marinette walked back across the classroom and dropped into her desk chair, the force of her slump sending it rolling a little. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“We’ll come up with something,” Tikki said confidently. She hopped off of her table and walked around the desk to offer her pinky to Marinette with a little smile. “We’re in this together now.” Marinette eyed her skeptically, but eventually held out her pinky and hooked it around Tikki’s.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” Marinette said, wryly. “I’m going to mount a protest against the company that owns my school. And I’m going to do it with one of my students.” Marinette took her pinky back and dragged her hands down her face.

“Aw, c’mon, Miss DC. It’s not that bad.” Tikki was smiling softly, her hands on her knees, when Marinette glared at her from between her fingers. “Think of me not as your student, but as your tiny magical sidekick.”

“Not helping, Tikki,” Marinette grumbled.

“Sorry,” Tikki said.

“No, you’re not,” Marinette sighed, sitting up in her seat and clasping her hands together. “But I guess I’ve signed up for that.”

“You have,” Tikki assured her with a grin.

“And I need to accept that.” Marinette nodded to herself. They were going to do this. The decision had been made. Now she needed to actually do something with it instead of worrying herself to death about it. “We’ve got some work to do, Tikki. When is your grandfather picking you up?”

Tikki checked the clock. “We have a couple hours.”

“A couple _hours_?”

“I told him I’d walk home.” Tikki shrugged. “I just have to be home in time for dinner.”

Marinette shook her head, but accepted it. Then she paused. “You, um. You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about this.”

This was her life now. She was swearing a student to _secrecy_.

“Relax, Miss DC, I know this is top secret.” Tikki waved away Marinette’s concern and put her hands on her hips. Then she smiled a little sheepishly. “But Grandpa kind of already knows.”

“What?” Marinette asked flatly.

“He’s been encouraging me to do what I can and I told him that I was gonna ask you if I could help, because I thought you would probably be doing something eventually and he agreed. So he knows, but he approves, so it’s okay.” Tikki smiled like that was supposed to make Marinette feel any better. Marinette sighed, but she supposed that she couldn’t do much about it since she didn’t want to ask Tikki to lie any more than she already had to. She was probably trusting way too many things to not go wrong, but…

“Okay. If you think it’s okay then I suppose we can trust your grandfather. Might as well get parental permission for this extremely illegal field trip.” Marinette shook her head, but put that road bump aside for later. “I need to- well. I guess _we_ need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“I actually had an idea about that,” Tikki said, leaning her hip against the desk.

“I’m open to any ideas you have.” Marinette gestured for her to continue.

“I was thinking maybe you could write some letters or articles or something exposing how Hawkmoth is harming the school,” Tikki said, bouncing a fist against her thigh.

“Hmmm. That could work.” Marinette tapped her chin with a finger, thinking through it, trying to predict how it would go over. Then she pointed the finger at Tikki. “If it gets distributed throughout the school then the parents would probably get to read it eventually and maybe start to get upset about what’s happening.”

“And then the parents will complain to the administration,” Tikki said excitedly.

“And something might change in how Hawkmoth is doing things.” Marinette leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees to keep her legs from jiggling in answering excitement.

“And it has the benefit of being pretty anonymous,” Tikki pointed out happily.

“But how would we distribute it without getting caught?” Marinette asked. Her enthusiasm popped and the remains of it fluttered to her feet. “How could we spread the letter widely enough to make a difference without giving away our connection to it?”

They both fell silent, the problem ticking away in their minds as the clocks ticked away on the walls, thoughts keeping pace with the time as they tried to find a solution.

“I might have a way,” Tikki said slowly.

“What is it?” Marinette asked.

Tikki shook her head. “I- I don’t think I should tell you.”

Marinette frowned. “Why?”

“If you don’t know how they’re distributed then you have plausible deniability whenever they start investigating.” Tikki raised her shoulders a little, but it was hard to tell if the move was meant as a shrug or as a defense.

“What?” Marinette asked. She shook her head. “Tikki, this whole thing was contingent on you asking me before you did things.”

“I know that,” Tikki said quickly. “But it would be a lot easier for you if you didn’t know much when they came around asking you. If I got caught, you know they’d come to you right away. Everyone knows we’re close.”

“Maybe,” Marinette said, unable to deny that particular point. “But it would also be a lot harder for me to protect you from getting caught in the first place if I don’t know what you’re doing and can’t counsel you. Tikki-”

“I don’t need protection-”

“Yes, you do,” Marinette said firmly. Tikki looked down at her hands, clasping them in front of her. Marinette sighed, letting herself soften. “We _both_ need protection, Tikki. Whether you’d just get suspended or not, I can’t let you take risks like that just for me. You’re already risking too much as it is. I know what’s involved in doing this and I’m prepared to suffer the consequences. I’ve already decided that the risks are with it.” Marinette bent forward until she caught Tikki’s eye. She smiled softly. “You know?”

Tikki stared at her for a moment before she gave her a little smile in return. “I know.”

“Good,” Marinette said, nodding decisively and sitting back up. “So, what was this idea of yours?”

“Um, I don’t think you’re going to like it,” Tikki said, smiling sheepishly.

“All the better reason to hear it.” Marinette smiled as reassuringly as she could.

Tikki contemplated her for a moment, then shrugged. “I thought maybe I could sneak copies of the letter into the school newspapers before they’re distributed.”

Marinette thought it over. “You’re right, I don’t like it very much.” Tikki deflated a little and Marinette hurried on. “But only because it’s risky. It would be a good way to distribute the letter quickly and widely, but it’d be easy to get caught putting the letters in and Alya might get heat for it.”

“But Alya doesn’t actually have anything to do with it, so she’d have plausible deniability.”

“Plausible deniability or not, she still might get in trouble,” Marinette said, shaking her head slowly. She sighed for probably the tenth time that evening. “But I don’t see another way. If we actually told Alya about it, she’d probably be over the moon.”

“Exactly,” Tikki said, brightening.

“I know Alya keeps the newspapers in the general storage room from when they’re delivered to the school on Wednesdays until they’re distributed during last period on Thursdays.”

“There’s a camera outside the storage room, but there isn’t one inside,” Tikki said confidently. “I could sneak the letters into the papers during my aid period seventh. Trixie says that they all check the papers when they’re delivered, but after that, they just focus on dividing them for distribution during last period on Thursdays, so chances are, the newspaper class wouldn’t even notice the letters until after the entire school already has them.” She bounced on her toes excitedly. Marinette stared at her.

“It’s a little worrying that you’re so good at this, Tikki.”

Tikki just shrugged. “I’m naturally gifted.”

“I sure hope so,” Marinette grumbled. “Do me a favor and tell me now if you’re part of the mafia. I don’t want to find out that you have some sort of gang affiliations after we get caught.”

“ _If_ we get caught,” Tikki said firmly.

“ _If_ we get caught,” Marinette repeated with a small smile.

“I’m not part of any mafias or gangs, I promise,” Tikki giggled.

“Great, so I get to give you your criminal awakening,” Marinette groaned. "Fantastic.”

Tikki giggled again, nudging Marinette until she stopped frowning. “C’mon, Miss DC, don’t lose hope yet. We still gotta figure out your pen name.”

“My pen name?” Marinette asked, her eyebrows furrowing. “Why do I need a pen name?”

“So that if you write more letters, everybody will know it’s you.”

“Isn’t the whole point of this that they _don’t_ know it’s me?”

“Creating an identity will give everyone hope. It’ll give them someone to cheer for!” Tikki said eagerly, bouncing on her toes again.

“Like a superhero?” Marinette asked wryly.

“If _you_ want to call it that, sure.” Tikki smiled innocently. She continued to smile, too young and too hopeful, until Marinette sighed.

“Okay, fine.” Tikki cheered. “What do you think the pen name should be then, miss evil mastermind?” Marinette flicked her eyes around the room for inspiration. Her eyes fell on a painting of the school mascot mounted on her wall. “What about the Panther? For the mascot?”

“Mm. I dunno. I don’t think black cats are our style,” Tikki said thoughtfully.

“Then it’s perfect, because it won’t give us away,” Marinette said pointedly.

“I see your point,” Tikki said calmly, “but what about…” Tikki also looked around quickly, searching for a suitable alternative. Her eyes lit up when she looked at the same painting Marinette had touched on. “What about Ladybug? It’s the school colors, so it’s not too suspicious, but it’s much more us.”

“Okay, Tikki,” Marinette said, amusement winning out for a moment over all of the other emotions vying for dominance, such as panic, fear, dread, etc. “I can write under Ladybug.”

“Great!” Tikki said, throwing up her hands. “Then all you need to do is write the letter, print two hundred copies without anyone finding out, get them to school tomorrow, and I can sneak them in.”

“You make that all sound so easy,” Marinette said ruefully. Then she sat bolt upright. “Wait, tomorrow?”

Tikki shrugged. “Yeah. Tomorrow’s Thursday.”

“Well, yeah, but- but that’s so soon.” Marinette felt the fragile hold amusement had on her crack as panic began to push its way to the surface.

“Time and tide wait for no man, Miss DC,” Tikki said solemnly.

“We aren’t men, Tikki,” Marinette said tersely, narrowly avoiding snapping at her. She closed her eyes, taking another deep breath, reaching for something resembling peace or calm or _something_. Tikki didn’t deserve to be snapped at; she was just trying to help.

It was just that all of this was so…much.

“You okay, Miss DC?” Tikki asked quietly. Marinette took one more moment to breathe before looking up at Tikki’s worried face.

“I’m fine, Tikki,” Marinette said, all of the hours of sleep she’d lost the night before suddenly catching up with her and making her limbs heavy, her head almost too much for her neck to hold up. “It’s just- yesterday, I was alarmed at the simple prospect of a petition and tomorrow we’re- we’re distributing two hundred copies of a letter condemning the actions of the people who pay my salary. Who pay _all_ of our salaries. It’s...just a lot to adjust to.”

Tikki stepped around Marinette’s side and placed an arm around her shoulders, patting her arm. “But you can do it, Miss DC. I know you can.”

Marinette let out a little laugh. “Thanks, Tikki.” She paused. “You know, I think I said that exact sentence to someone earlier today.”

“Yep. Penelope found it very comforting.” Tikki grinned at her. “I learned from the best.”

Marinette laughed out loud at that. Then she hauled herself out of her seat. “C’mon. If I’m going to write this letter tonight, I’d better get going. And I’m sure your grandfather is waiting for you. You want a ride home?”

“Sure,” Tikki said, skipping towards the door and turning around to grin at Marinette. Marinette couldn’t help but smile back.

For better or for worse, they were doing this. She and Tikki were going to mount an unauthorized, schoolwide protest that probably broke at least one, if not a dozen, of Hawkmoth’s policies. They were lighting a fire that would be uncontrollable once it caught.

All Marinette could do was try to make sure it didn’t burn them in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that feeling when you accidentally don't write for two months straight due to the insanity your life became and have forgotten how to do the whole writer thing? No? That's- that's just me?
> 
> ...oops.
> 
>  
> 
> Next Time: _Actually_ enter Ladybug.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Note 6/10/2017: I am, at least for now, abandoning this fic. I'm currently not sure if or when I'll ever get back to it. If you really want to see more of it, please leave a comment and let me know. Thank you for reading and supporting!**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and for all the kudos and the comments. You are all lovely people. If you wanna say hi I'm over on Tumblr @secretlyalya


End file.
